Donald Trump has agreed to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.  What could go wrong?  

Along with racism and hate, Donald Trump offered his voters business acumen, especially his ability to make deals.  He constantly attacked President Obama and others for making bad deals, stupid deals, deals Trump and Trump alone could fix.  By now, though, everyone has figured out that Trump is an empty barrel, a noisy, empty barrel, in terms vulgarized from Plato and Shakespeare by a once respected Marine Corps officer.

From Newsweek:

“Lost contracts, bankruptcies, defaults, deceptions and indifference to investors—Trump’s business career is a long, long list of such troubles ….”  

The list of Trump’s failures proves that his negotiating skills are imaginary at best.  And, since becoming President, his incompetence has become ever more obvious.  Despite his tough talk and catchphrase, Trump is too cowardly to fire people.  After using China as a punching bag during the campaign, a brief talk with Xi Jinping, the President of the People’s Republic of China (likely for life), convinced Trump that he really was on our side and, well, it’s complicated.  In a news conference following the shutdown of the government, Senator Chuck Schumer laid bare yet another example of Trump’s negotiating incompetence.  And, of course, there are all the times he has curtsied to Putin.  

Negotiations require knowledge of the subject, of your position, of the opposition’s position, of alternative positions, and of the consequences of each decision along the way.  Negotiations require character to keep channels open and to not sour the environment.  Negotiations require patience and persistence.  They require judgement. They require strength.  They require courage.

Donald Trump possesses none of these requisites, and were he capable of developing them, he is too lazy to do so.  Instead, he is an exemplar of what their absence does to a person’s character.  Donald Trump has a single skill in life, lying, and that is less a skill than a reflex.  At everything else, he is incompetent.

If Kim Jong-un has been paying any attention, he knows all this.  

Most officials would be suspicious of Kim’s sudden offering.  And the higher the official, which would confer ever more legitimacy on Kim, the more circumspect they would be.  Presidents certainly have been, since Bill Clinton.  But not Trump, giving away a key negotiating carrot while blindsiding his own State Department and the Pentagon. 

I suspect that Trump thinks his tough talk rattled Kim and is confident that he can bend Kim to his will or charm him into submission.  Will he even know enough to have aids or advisors in the room during the talks?  Is there anyone left at State that could aid and advise him?  Will he even have his own interpreter?  His performance to date does not suggest optimism.  

This is a con.  This is a set-up, and Trump is the mark, the chump, the patsy, the “Dotard” to use Kim’s word.  There’s always a chance that this could de-escalate tensions in lasting and positive ways.  But this is Trump we’re talking about.  I don’t see this ending well – except in Trump’s tweets.