There will come a time when we as a society can all safely ignore the content on Truth Social, but alas, we all have miles to go before we sleep.
For anyone who missed it, the week in geopolitics began Sunday evening with a post from President Trump in which the president celebrated his “very good” relationship with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jon Un. He cited that relationship as the predicate for substantially reducing this week’s joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea, a decision he made a day before those drills were set to begin. In an addendum that Trump wrote was “somewhat unrelated (?),” he noted that South Korea and its president recently said “No thanks!” to joining the U.S. efforts toward the denuclearization of Iran.
23 hours later, Trump punctuated the news with a meme:
And 3,000 people ReTruthed his message.
I think this week’s news is useful as a snapshot of how it’s felt to follow Trump foreign policy for the past two years. Because while the plain text of Trump’s initial message lends credence to the popular notion that he simply admires dictators on a personal level and is happy to punish any ally who isn’t 100% in lockstep with his agenda—as ever, Trump is happy to throw red meat to his critics—there was probably more at play with the South Korea move.
