There's a NATO meeting coming up, which means 27 other countries are now scrambling to put plastic caps over the electrical outlets and childproofing the cupboard doors. Because Little Donny Tantrum is comin' to town.
NATO is scrambling to tailor its upcoming meeting to avoid taxing President Donald Trump’s notoriously short attention span. The alliance is telling heads of state to limit talks to two to four minutes at a time during the discussion, several sources inside NATO and former senior U.S. officials tell Foreign Policy.
Strengthening the security of the free world: important. Coming up with ways to do it that you can fully convey before the egg timer in Trump's head dings; very important. Four months in office, and our nation's leader is already so notoriously dim that allies are reshaping multinational meetings in order to cope with his obvious, ahem, limitations.
“It’s kind of ridiculous how they are preparing to deal with Trump,” said one source briefed extensively on the meeting’s preparations. “It’s like they’re preparing to deal with a child — someone with a short attention span and mood who has no knowledge of NATO, no interest in in-depth policy issues, nothing,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They’re freaking out.”
So you're saying they've been well-briefed and know what they're dealing with. Well, that's a plus.
Also, NATO won't be publishing any formal post-meeting statement of unity or strategy or whatnot. This is also because of Trump, who has repeatedly shown disdain for NATO and, for that matter, everything else.
Four months into office, Trump hasn’t clarified U.S. policy toward Europe — he cheered Brexit and appeared to endorse anti-Europe candidate Marine Le Pen in the recent French elections — let alone toward NATO.
So they're not even going to try. Honestly, they may be overthinking all of this. Donald Trump does not care. Donald Trump will go, will do the minimal amount of work expected of him, if that, and then on his way back home will visit his golf course in Scotland because you just know he will. Give him an oversized painting of himself riding a tank and he'll be your friend forever, NATO. The man is not complicated.