Support NeoGAF

[Xando]

Even before the latest escalation of nuclear threats between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un’s North Korea, senior diplomats and officials from America’s European allies have been warning that the US president’s approach to world affairs is extremely dangerous – pointing to his apparent ignorance of other countries’ history, his unfiltered use of social media and the lack of a strong, experienced team around him.

In interviews with BuzzFeed News, six top European government officials who’ve had firsthand dealings on the international stage with Trump and his administration describe a president regarded even by allies as erratic and limited, and whose perceived shortcomings are compounded by the ongoing chaos beneath him in the White House.

The officials, all speaking on condition of anonymity, voiced similar and consistent concerns, in particular over his unprecedented use of Twitter, which they said demonstrated the lack of normal government controls at the top of the administration.

“Trump could send a tweet in the middle of the night pissing off Kim Jong-un,” one seasoned diplomat told BuzzFeed News. “And the next morning we wake up to a world on the brink of war.”

That observation came before Trump latest bellicose rhetoric, and the sense of alarm in European governments can only have increased in the last 24 hours. On Tuesday evening, Trump warned North Korea would be “met with fire and fury like the world has never seen” if it continued to threaten the US. His comments have already prompted Kim Jong-un’s regime to ratchet up its own threats, announcing that it was considering a pre-emptive missile strike on the US Pacific territory of Guam. On Wednesday morning, Trump tweeted that the US nuclear arsenal is now "far stronger and more powerful than ever before...."

At one level, the officials said, he is something of a laughing stock among Europeans at international gatherings. One revealed that a small group of diplomats play a version of word bingo whenever the president speaks because they consider his vocabulary to be so limited. “Everything is ‘great’, ‘very, very great’, ‘amazing’,” the diplomat said.

But behind the mocking, there is growing fear among international governments that Trump is a serious threat to international peace and stability.

“He has no historical view. He is only dealing with these issues now, and seems to think the world started when he took office,” a diplomat told BuzzFeed News, pointing to Trump’s remarks and tweets about defence spending. “He thinks that NATO existed only to keep the Communists out of Europe. He has a similar attitude in Asia Pacific with Japan, ignoring that the US basically wrote their constitution.” During his campaign, Trump called out Japan to pay more for the security US provides, including for hosting the US troops in the country. Japan’s constitution restricts its military options.

They also believe Trump’s foreign policy is chiefly driven by an obsession with unravelling Barack Obama’s policies. “It’s his only real position,” one European diplomat said. “He will ask: ‘Did Obama approve this?’ And if the answer is affirmative, he will say: ‘We don’t.’ He won’t even want to listen to the arguments or have a debate. He is obsessed with Obama.”

Describing a meeting between their boss and the president as “basically useless,” they said: “He [Trump] just bombed us with questions: ‘how many people do you have? What’s your GDP? How much oil does [that country] produce? How many barrels a day? How much of it is yours?’”

“He’s not the kind of person you can have a discussion about how to deal with [Fayez] al-Sarraj [the prime minister of Libya]. So you look for people around him, and that is where it’s a problem: the constant upheaval, it’s unclear who has influence, who is close to the president,” the official added.

Some diplomats noted that Trump understands power dynamics, and seems eager to affirm his place within these. “He gets that Germany is important. He is very graceful with China’s Xi Jinping. The impression is that he is seeking affirmation and approval as president of the United States,” a senior European government official said.

Still, the official added, “he divides up countries based on his world view. He doesn’t respect France for their handling of immigration. It is clear he dislikes Germany.”

More here

https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonar...mp-is?utm_term=.xsGY5kwO3&bftwnews#.ewJPz0yMG

 

[Eidan]

Funny, it's the only position of the Republican party as well. Obama truly devastated the psyche of conservative America.

 

[Transistor]

They're exactly right.

 

[Linkark07]

He isn't the only one obsessed with Obama. The Republicans are still obsessed with him too.

 

[Preezy]

 

[Akuun]

a president regarded even by allies as erratic and limited

That's a very diplomatic way of calling him a fucking moron. And the rest of the article just confirms it.

Not that we need an inside scoop to know that, but it's interesting to know that other officials see him the same way, and to hear firsthand reports of how he acts on the world stage.

 

[L Thammy]

I figured as much.

 

[Lightning_Roller]

Nailed it. This man despises someone that he will never amount to, no matter what he does. And the republicans want to destroy the legacy of Obama as well.

 

[Preacher]

That's actually hilarious and also sad. The Obama obsession is something people have observed since the birthed shit was rampant in the media. However it's good to see attention being brought towards it again. I can't help but find his hatred of Obama to be racist and utterly inappropriate

 

[The Technomancer]

We elected a black man and half the country lost it's fucking mind

 

[Violence Jack]

Of course. He cares more about undoing the job that a hard-working black man and his family did than he does about this country or its citizens.

 

[HazySaiyan]

People need to start telling him Obama did a bunch of crazy stuff so he'll do the opposite

 

[IdreamofHIME]

If Obama wants another Nobel peace award, he should tweet out that he hates N Korea and loves Nukes.

 

[Apharmd]

Having a black man for President of the United States of America REALLY, REALLY shook the racists.

And they are willing to set themselves and everyone else on fire because of that trauma.

Snowflakes.

 

[Lightning_Roller]

We elected a black man and half the country lost it's fucking mind

Thus beginning this awful as fuck timeline. All because stupid bastards couldn't take a black man sitting in the white house.

 

[Nowise10]

Its what I've seen his supporters latch onto as well. They take joy and pride in trying to "erase Obama's legacy".

 

[gofreak]

His obsession with Obama is indeed deeply weird. Like a troubled teenager obsessing over someone who rejected their romantic overtures, or something.

Thus beginning this awful as fuck timeline. All because stupid bastards couldn't take a black man sitting in the white house.

I think it kind of is this. Trump is and has been obviously status obsessed his entire life, and I think while he could handle white men having higher status than him, it just broke something inside his racist little mind to see a black man ascend to that level. And despite since elevating to the same rank, I think he deep down knows that 'society' doesn't and won't hold him in the same regard as it did Obama, and so this obsession and deep seated status anxiety continues.

 

[Kai Dracon]

In an oddly poetic way, Trump is proof of what would happen if people really did elect someone "just like themselves".

People like to shake their fist and say they'd run the gubmint better than those poly-tishuns' and they'd go around tellin' other countries The Way It's Gonna Be!

Well, here we are.

 

[MKIL65]

they said: “He [Trump] just bombed us with questions: ‘how many people do you have? What’s your GDP? How much oil does [that country] produce? How many barrels a day? How much of it is yours?’”

Wow, he really does run things like a business.

 

[gcubed]

Its what I've seen his supporters latch onto as well. They take joy and pride in trying to "erase Obama's legacy".

And like everything else Trump tries, he's failing at that as well.

Can you imagine if Trump was competent? The only thing that saved this country is that they elected an imbecile.

 

[Boombloxer]

We elected a black man and half the country lost it's fucking mind

He's one of the best the country had, so yea, that's going to bother a lot of people.

 

[Caja 117]

Any doubt that Republican officials refer to Obama with the N word behind closed doors?

its sickening the amount of hatred that comes from this party and the steps they can make to erase a legacy in spite of the whole planet.

 

[linkboy]

So, how long until Trump asks Sessions if it"s possible to prosecute foreigners for leaking bad things about him?

 

[Eidan]

We elected a black man and half the country lost it's fucking mind

Correct. And this. TRUMP. Was their answer to it.

I'll never let a Trump voter live it down. I'll shame them till my dying breath.

 

[mnannola]

It's unreal how much Trump and the GOP are still focused on Obama and Hillary. The election is over. Obama's presidency is over. Get over it and focus on actually making the country better.

I think the biggest issue is that they are completely bankrupt of original ideas to actually improve the country. They are only fueled by their dislike for liberal ideology, so all they can do is things that negatively impact it.

 

[DrROBschiz]

It's unreal how much Trump and the GOP are still focused on Obama and Hillary. The election is over. Obama's presidency is over. Get over it and focus on actually making the country better.

I think the biggest issue is that they are completely bankrupt of original ideas to actually improve the country. They are only fueled by their dislike for liberal ideology, so all they can do is things that negatively impact it.

Quoted for hard truth

Time to face reality conservatives

Being "anti liberal" isnt enough. It never was

 

[Snarky(HEART)]

His obsession with Obama is indeed deeply weird. Like a troubled teenager obsessing over someone who rejected their romantic overtures, or something.



I think it kind of is this. Trump is and has been obviously status obsessed his entire life, and I think while he could handle white men having higher status than him, it just broke something inside his racist little mind to see a black man ascend to that level. And despite since elevating to the same rank, I think he deep down knows that 'society' doesn't and won't hold him in the same regard as it did Obama, and so this obsession and deep seated status anxiety continues.

Maybe Trump truly is the cuck?

 

[SoundofSilence]

He isn't the only one obsessed with Obama. The Republicans are still obsessed with him too.

The obsession springs from a deeply racist worldview that holds that a black man can never be President of the United States. In their view, it's a white man's world ruled by laws written by white men for white men. Hence the need to erase Obama and all of his efforts, regardless of any good they did. It's utterly perverted, despicable beyond belief but so true as to shame anyone brave enough to say it out loud.

 

[Toth]

What does Trump think about Obama having like 4ox more twitter followers, the majority of which are actually real

 

[Binabik15]

Funny, it's the only position of the Republican party as well. Obama truly devastated the psyche of conservative America.

White men obsessively thinking about a powerful black man while railing against homosexuals and bashing their version of the bible. Hmmmh.

What odds do I get for betting on him hating Germany because he can not only not bully us *and* have a female leader (a very smart and educated one).

Spoiler

And got rid of MOST (neo) Nazis AND resist Putin's AfD "Lügenpresse" puppets

 

[PsychoSoldier]

White people's pathology about black people is going to doom us all.

 

[BlackLagoon]

We elected a black man and half the country lost it's fucking mind

I think you're not giving enough credit to the Bush administration for destroying Neoconservatism as the predominant ideology inside the GOP. The tea-partiers were already loosing their mind before Obama was elected, he just gave conservatives a "great" new platform to rally around.

 

[Wolfgunblood Garopa]

It's not just Obama in particular, or even just racism. It's party warfare. The #1 goal of the Republicans is to destroy Democrats. Policies, character, it doesn't matter- it all has to be dismantled and then slandered until they are no longer in the public eye, and even then there is no stopping.

 

[Gordon Shumway]

I figured as much.

😃

 

[Akuun]

His obsession with Obama is indeed deeply weird. Like a troubled teenager obsessing over someone who rejected their romantic overtures, or something.

It really does feel similar. It's like a career version of some kid who got rejected by a girl in school, completely overreacts over it and decides to spend the rest of his life chugging misogynist/redpill/MRA kool-aid.

 

[Nepenthe]

This isn't ultimately surprising. Every time black people get a leg up, white people just fucking lose it. Civil war and emancipation? Failed Reconstruction and the installment of Jim Crow. Black Wall Street? Riots and burnings. Civil Rights? Assassinations of key people, the drug war, and the act's eventual neutering. Obama elected as President? Elect a white nationalist moron right afterwards.

It's like clockwork. God forbid a black man cure cancer because welcome to your fucking Am I Legend timeline in response. America will be damned if our accomplishments and progress can just stand as they are.

 

[jmdajr]

sad!

 

[Snarky(HEART)]

This isn't ultimately surprising. Every time black people get a leg up, white people just fucking lose it. Civil war and emancipation? Failed Reconstruction and the installment of Jim Crow. Black Wall Street? Riots and burnings. Civil Rights? Assassinations of key people, the drug war, and the act's eventual neutering. Obama elected as President? Elect a white nationalist moron right afterwards.

It's like clockwork. God forbid a black man cure cancer because welcome to your fucking Am I Legend timeline in response. America will be damned if our accomplishments and progress can just stand as they are.

America's entire history is just a swirling cycle of black vs white.

But only white is interested in fighting.

 

[Derwind]

The Obama obsession is largely a Republican thing, as much as Trump is destroying his legacy, this is what core Republican voters bought into and have essentially been paying for, this last decade.

But remember kids, it ain't racism, just a difference of opinion. Also, BLM is the real issue here.

At one level, the officials said, he is something of a laughing stock among Europeans at international gatherings. One revealed that a small group of diplomats play a version of word bingo whenever the president speaks because they consider his vocabulary to be so limited. “Everything is ‘great’, ‘very, very great’, ‘amazing’,” the diplomat said.

This actually sounds fun, Trump word bingo.

No one has ever or will ever take is verbal diaherra seriously.

 

[I H8 Memes]

Maaaan that pee pee tape is real isnt it. Before this article i actually only half believed it. Now I'm sure it's true.

The thing about the tape and how it's described is that it's such a bizarre scene as to be unbelievable. If you were going to falsely claim that an embarrassing tape exists of donald trump you want people to believe it. You make up something normal. Not a scenario so crude that tv news cant even fully describe it. A pee pee tape can only exist if trump is absolutely obsessed with everything Obama ever did.

 

[PdotMichael]

If Obama wants another Nobel peace award, he should tweet out that he hates N Korea and loves Nukes.

Would be the first one he deserves.

 

[zeemumu]

People need to start telling him Obama did a bunch of crazy stuff so he'll do the opposite

First, let him announce something awful, then reply with "Oh, just like Obama, then?"

 

[ezekial45]

We elected a black man and half the country lost it's fucking mind

It really says a lot when a sizable portion of this country saw Donald Trump of all people as the new 'Great White Hope'.

It's White Fragility at its most extreme.

 

[MatrixMan.EXE]

They're not wrong. He has no real policy other than undo everything that Obama did.

 

[Haunted]

Nothing new in this article, we already knew that other world leaders, diplomats... basically anyone not from the US government is laughing at Trump.

USA is a laughingstock, a joke.

 

[AWizardDidIt]

I don't believe that Trump himself really hates Obama so much as it's really the only unifying factor of his base and that's where he gets all of his validation from. He thinks of his presidency like a television show in which he's found his audience and is almost exclusively pandering to them. It's a disgustingly cynical way to treat the office of Presidency, but I'd expect nothing better from him.

 

[Mr. Poolman]

Yes Trump, the whole planet is laughing at you, not with you.

 

[VariantX]

We elected a black man and half the country lost it's fucking mind

Nothing else needs to be said. That half of the country has been screaming mad. They got power and they still mad. They so mad they don't even have sense to steal the black guy's accomplishments and parade them as their own. Just burn government down.

 

[Snarky(HEART)]

I don't believe that Trump himself really hates Obama so much as it's really the only unifying factor of his base and that's where he gets all of his validation from. He thinks of his presidency like a television show in which he's found his audience and is almost exclusively pandering to them. It's a disgustingly cynical way to treat the office of Presidency, but I'd expect nothing better from him.

No, he is absolutely obsessed with Obama and there is a lot of evidence.

Back when Obama was in office, Trump tweeted constantly about everything he did. Trump was the one that kickstarted the whole birth certificate bullshit. Trump never got over Obama tearing into him at the 2011 dinner.

And it's completely obvious the pee pee tape is real.

 

[jiiikoo]

I still can’t wrap my head around why Obama is viewed so negatively by the conservatives of the US. I just can’t.