DNA EDIT: Courting Kim – Trump is the most unconventional US President ever

The least that can be said about Donald Trump is that he is America’s most unconventional President ever. So unconventional that he plans to turn the 170-year-old Monroe Doctrine, the centrepiece of US foreign policy invoked by several of his illustrious predecessors for more than a century and a half on its head. Trump wants the United States of America out of global politics. Minimum meddling in hot spots like the Middle East and Afghanistan, he takes a neutral line on China, allows the Big Dragon to dictate terms in the South China Sea and wants a wall on the Mexican border to keep aliens out, in addition to playing patsy with Russia. The United States has never had a President who disagrees publicly with the FBI and the CIA – even going so far as to call them names, without so much as batting an eyelid. His policy pronouncements are known through his daily tweets and he things nothing of taking on journalists, individually and quite personally. Unlike former US Presidents, his likes border on the bizarre. 

The White House announced on the weekend that President Trump will hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to coax the hermit kingdom to give up its nuclear weapons. News of a second summit with the reclusive Kim came after Trump held a 90-minute meeting with a North Korean envoy in the Oval Office. The summit level meeting is scheduled for February end. Since their first meeting held in June 2018 in Singapore, the two leaders have exchanged letters – something that no former US President has done. It signifies stepped-up efforts by both countries to hold talks, even though it has to be admitted that no tangible evidence of a positive development is available so far, except for some vague noises on denuclearisation, which is neither here nor there. Since their last meeting, experts have detailed reports suggesting that North Korea has been developing nuclear and missile technology. 

On Mexico, the US President’s position has been nothing, if not quixotic. Over the weekend, Trump said that he will make a major ‘announcement’ on the government shutdown and the southern border, as the standstill over his border wall continues into the fifth week. Well, thus far, Trump has not met his deadline and there is no evidence that he plans to do so anytime soon. In fact, it would be fair to say that no US President with the exception of Richard Nixon, has treaded as far as Trump. Special Counsel Robert Muller has been investigating Russian interference in the US 2016 election and a possible connection between Trump and the Russians. 

While two Presidents, Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998 were impeached by the House of Representatives, neither was convicted by the Senate and both went on to complete their terms in office. In the case of Nixon, in 1974, the House Judiciary Committee had recommended impeachment and removal from office for obstructing justice, abuse of power and contempt of Congress. But he had quit before the vote. The million dollar question is this: which way would Trump go?