Donald Trump shakes hands
with French President Emmanuel Macron at NATO headquarters on May 25. Getty
Images
He was clear, concise
and disciplined. Those were the key ingredients that created a striking success
for President Trump in his first foreign trip.
If he can bottle that
recipe and start each day in the Oval Office with a big gulp of it, his
presidency gets a renewed chance to live up to its promises.
Trump’s clarity on the
global stage was a reminder of why he was elected. Much as he did in the
campaign on his best days, he cut through the BS to get to the heart of
contentious issues and offer forceful solutions.
Under enormous scrutiny,
he acted in the best traditions of American leadership on two continents by
helping create a Muslim
NATO to combat radical Islamists and by pushing
the original NATO to face terrorism and financial facts.
Throughout the weeklong
trip, which also included a substantive, friendly
meeting with the pope and tense
negotiations over trade and climate change, Trump showed the message
discipline too often missing in the White House. And he did it without
sacrificing his core convictions or puckish personality.
One priceless moment
came as he stood in the $1.4 billion new NATO building in Brussels and referred
to American taxpayers running out of patience with the alliance’s deadbeats.
The incident no doubt cheered his supporters at home as much as it rankled the
European elites, most of whom regard taxpayers as suitable only for fleecing,
especially when they are American.
