For populist leader Trump, Kim summit served a perfect ending after G7 chaos

US President Donald Trump has an uncanny ability to pull a rabbit out of the hat. On Tuesday, June 12, the world's most powerful man, took part in a historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and came out with a content heart, saying it succeeded more than anybody would have expected. Kim, too, echoed Trump's feelings saying the world will see a major change now.

Trump's post-summit presser set a positive tone

Trump said in the post-summit press conference that Kim reaffirmed his unwavering commitment to complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and asserted the process will begin very, very quickly.

He also aired optimism over lifting the sanctions saying it will be done when the nukes were no more considered a factor. The US president, in another optimistic gesture, said the US will be stopping the war games with South Africa which will save it massive expenses. Trump said under the current circumstances of negotiations, conducting war games with its ally in the Korean Peninsula was "inappropriate". Trump also gave a 360-degree touch to his meeting with the Korean dictator saying he did discuss the issue of human rights with the latter and would do something on it. He said "it's rough in a lot of places".

The US president also hoped that the factor of pulling out troops from South Korea would be a part of the equation some time and put himself on the same page with Kim with a desire to make the Korean Peninsula a better place.

Trump came back strongly after the G7 mess

Trump's statesmanship in Singapore came after the disastrous visit to the G7 summit - the rich men's get-together where Trump refused to acknowledge the joint communiqué at the end of the summit, standing firm on his position of imposing high sanctions on Washington's old allies.

For Trump, 'serving' his own country's interests comes above anything else and he is not averse to treating his own allies the way he treats China on this matter.

But for the rest of the West, this is a clear violation of their age-old alliance. For analysts, the West today is falling like nine pins ahead of Trump's pyro-diplomacy by which he exerts pressure to get his job done.

The observation was right but till only Trump reached Singapore's shores. The tycoon-turned-president always knew that unlike the rest of the G7 members, he had a second chance to erase the negatives by accomplishing an eye-catching summit with the North Korean dictator - something that hasn't happened ever earlier. And it was a right thinking on his part.

When he shook Kim's hands for almost 12 seconds at the Capello Hotel on Tuesday, the picture of Trump getting 'gheraoed' by other leaders of the G7 was replaced by a more positive image of Trump doing something no one did before him. In diplomatic politics, first impression makes a lot of difference and the smart leader in Trump understands no less than anybody else.

The Kim summit is a complete win-win situation for Trump for its failure could only be facilitated by North Korea's U-turn from the pledges and it will give the US piling up pressure on Pyongyang as it was before. Trump would say to the world: "See, we did everything to give peace a chance but they didn't care."

Trump's good luck lies in the fact that he heads a power which is ubiquitous. It enables him to create more situations and even faster to undo the outcomes that were not a desirable by those that were.

The US president's torpedoing the G7 summit will be less analysed by the people who now believe he has done a great job in Singapore. For a populist leader, the momentary triumphs matter more than long-term and in-depth ones and Trump is filling the bill perfectly well.

In Singapore, Trump also scored a point with China

Trump's diplomatic adventure in Singapore also scores a high point with China, one of the US's biggest rivals, and that too in Beijing's backyard.

By completing a feel-good summit with Kim which is being perceived positively everywhere, Trump has given the message to China that he can knit an alliance if possible with lot more other nations if he could win over the heart of Beijing's closest ally in the region.

But China couldn't express its worry even if it is deep within with the success of the Trump-Kim summit for it was more worried over Kim's reckless nuclear ambitions that could have endangered its own borders over a period of time, if allowed unconstrained.