Fallon's Town Talk: World’s political stage has been transformed since infamous debate
The days, back in his first term, when Trump was something of a figure of fun for other world leaders are gone. (Pool via AP)
Last Friday, June 27th, was the first anniversary of the now-infamous US presidential debate between the then-president Joe Biden and the man who preceded and would succeed him in the Oval Office, Donald Trump.
The benefit of hindsight casts Biden’s disastrous performance in that debate, along with a failed assassination attempt on the Republican candidate, as the moments that clinched Trump’s return to the White House.
Geopolitics has experienced tumultuous upheaval during those 12 months. Watching the NATO leaders grovel to President Trump last week showed how he has come to dominate the world stage since he began his second term last January. The days, back in his first term, when Trump was something of a figure of fun for other world leaders are gone.
Now the leaders of Western democracies, the nations traditionally seen as the allies of the US, view Trump with a mixture of bafflement, confusion and fear. The media in Ireland and most of the rest of Europe continue to rail against his policies and personality but the leaders of those same countries are doing their utmost to please Trump or, at the very least, not incur his wrath.
Last week, the European members of NATO agreed to increase their spending on defence to five percent of their GDP, something that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
NATO general-secretary Mark Rutte led the effusive tributes to Trump. Rutte was previously prime minister of the Netherlands and a respected leader in the EU. He has reinvented himself as a Trump whisperer and has built a rapport with The Donald.
Giorgia Meloni, vilified by much of the Irish media when she became Italian prime minister, has emerged as another key figure in trying to convince Trump to maintain close ties with Europe. Even Ursula Von Der Leyen, who seemed to have no common ground with the US president, is striving to build a connection that will prevent a trade war between the EU and the US – another prospect that was unimaginable pre-Trump.
Rutte and other European leaders saw the NATO summit as a success. Their flattery of Trump is an attempt to keep the US onside as the threat of Russian aggression casts a spectre across the continent.
Since its formation after World War 11, NATO has known that the US has its back and will buttress Europe militarily and financially. US power was the deterrent which kept the USSR, and later Russia, from getting any ideas about aggressive expansion.
Previous US presidents, including Barack Obama, have demanded Europe pay more for its own defence, but before Trump no US president ever threatened to leave the alliance.
Trump has turned his erratic unpredictability into his most powerful diplomatic weapon. He revels in knowing his mood swings keep others off-guard as they haven’t a clue what he’s going to do next. Be it trade tariffs or wars in Iran, Gaza and Ukraine, Trump’s outlook can change in the blink of an eye.
I don’t recall any other US president in the last 40 years who has every other major nation or media organisation hanging on his every press conference. It’s almost going back into the mists of time when emperors and kings decided foreign policy on their own whim. What it means for the future nobody can tell – and that’s just the way Trump wants it.
While Joe Duffy’s retirement from Liveline got more publicity, certainly from his RTÉ colleagues, for many, a more significant retirement from the media took place last week when Johnny Giles made his last appearance as a soccer pundit on the ‘Off The Ball’ show on Newstalk radio.
I have to admit I stopped listening to ‘Off The Ball’ some years ago. However, I had continued to listen to Giles’ inimitable analysis on ‘The Stand’ podcast with his compadres, Eamon Dunphy and Liam Brady. For so long, the legendary trio dominated discussion about soccer in this country. Like most empires, their reign probably went on too long, but there isn’t any doubt that, at their best, Giles, Dunphy and Brady, with the late Bill O’Herlihy pulling the strings as the mediator, were compelling viewing.
This time last year, Brady retired from broadcasting and since then there wasn’t any separate soccer episode on ‘The Stand’. It was a straw in the wind and around Christmas, Dunphy shelved his podcast. It wasn’t officially the end but ‘The Stand’ hasn’t returned since. Giles’s retirement from media activities brings the curtain down on a stellar punditry career that will spark fond memories of a time when the sporting nation hung on his every word.
