Trump plays nice at divisive G20

US president Donald Trump Friday struck a conciliatory tone with fellow world leaders at one of the most high-stakes G20 meetings in years, despite deep divisions on trade and climate change.

Host Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, appealed for unity among bickering world leaders at the start of Japan’s new era of ‘Reiwa’ or ‘beautiful harmony’, with the long-running trade row between China and the United States threatening to overshadow the event.

‘With your help, I hope we will realise beautiful harmony in Osaka... rather than highlight our confrontations, let us seek out what unites us,’ said Abe.

The appeal seemed to have chimed with arguably the club’s most volatile member, as Trump dialled down his previously feisty rhetoric against traditional US allies.

Fresh from describing Germany as ‘delinquent’ for not paying enough into the NATO budget, he was effusive when meeting chancellor Angela Merkel.

‘She’s a fantastic person, a fantastic woman and I’m glad to have her as a friend,’ he said.

Merkel appeared well during the talks, a day after a second public shaking attack raised fears about her health. German officials insist she is not ill.

Likewise, Trump hailed Abe, for sending ‘many automobile companies’ to the United States, apparently heartened by a document Abe gave him showing investment into the US.

Only two days earlier, he had seemed to question the US-Japan alliance, saying that Washington was committed to protecting Japan but if America was attacked, the Japanese could just ‘watch it on a Sony television’.

World leaders mingled and greeted each other during the family photo with French president Emmanuel Macron and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker whispering extensively into Trump’s ear.

Trump entered with president Vladimir Putin, chatting amicably, and the Russian leader patted his American counterpart gently on the back as they parted ways.

The pair met later for the first face-to-face talks since Helsinki in July with Trump hailing a ‘very, very good relationship’.

The amicable meeting came after Putin in an interview with the Financial Times declared that the ‘liberal idea has become obsolete’, a view that met with strong pushback from EU president Donald Tusk.

‘What I find really obsolete is authoritarianism, personality cults, the rule of oligarchs,’ Tusk said at a briefing in Osaka.

Putin later received a broadside from British prime minister Theresa May who said normal relations would not be restored until Moscow ends its ‘irresponsible and destabilising’ activity.

It was their first formal face-to-face since the poisoning in the English city of Salisbury of former spy Sergei Skripal last year that plunged ties into the deep freeze.

Despite warm first encounters, the meeting could be one of the most explosive in years, with clashes possible over trade, Iran, and climate change.

‘We are seeing rising tension over trade and geopolitics, which are downside risks,’ admitted a Japanese official on the sidelines.

Much of Donald Trump’s time in office has been overshadowed by allegations Moscow helped get him elected, but when it came to confronting Vladimir Putin on the issue, the US president did it in a joke.

‘Don’t meddle in the election, president, don’t meddle,’ Trump said with a smile, wagging his finger playfully at the Russian leader as the pair held talks in Osaka on Friday, on the sidelines of the G20.

Putin said nothing, but grinned in response to the comment, which came only after a reporter shouted a question, asking whether Trump would warn his Russian counterpart about influencing the presidential vote next year.

The meeting was the first time the two leaders have held face-to-face talks since a controversial meeting last year in Helsinki.

Trump said the pair would be discussing ‘trade... some disarmament, a little protectionism perhaps.’

‘A lot of very positive things are going to come out of the relationship,’ he predicted, to smiles from Putin.

‘I cannot but agree with Mr president,’ the Russian leader said.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net