The inaugural session of the Peace Council was designed like any other event organized in Trumpworld: centered on the person of Donald Trump.
Everything – from the arrangement of foreign guests in the room, to the superficiality of Trump’s contacts with them, to their brief interventions and to the long and rambling speech of the American president – was clearly intended to satisfy the US leader’s appetite for glorification and convenience in the smallest detail.
The moment resembled too little a plenary of an international organization, but very much a session of worship (opportunistic) and self-worship (sincere)where earthly mortals and a peerless god put on a show.
In fact, at a look at the leaders in the room, you can easily understand that for most of them it was something normal – in the countries they represented, you are born and die under the sign of the cult of personality. I hope that at least from this point of view, our president, Nicușor Dan, felt awkward and embarrassed.
Otherwise, Donald Trump did not disappoint expectations: he digressed in one of the speeches prepared by the advisers, he said his likes and wants, he bragged non-stop and again exhibited two other great obsessions: money and real estate.
Trump referred to money from all angles, but perhaps the most exotic moment was when he pointed out one of the leaders present.
- He appreciated him because he has a lot of money.
- And when he looked for him , he pointed out that in fact he could have stayed anywhere, given how much money he has. In other words, at the Board of Peace the paradigm remains the same as in Trumpworld: if you have a lot of money, you have a lot of rights (with the implication, that the reverse is also true: if you don’t have a lot of money, you have few rights).
Donald Trump, on the other hand, spoke about real estate right at the start praising the potential of the building where the event was held and emphasizing the merits of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, since Marco, Donald said, had set his eyes on that building.
It should also be noted that the initial fears and suspicions of Europeans (and not only) were confirmed: those that through the Board, Trump seeks to undermine the foundations of the UN. The American president himself said it, albeit differently: the Board will “supervise” the UN.
Regarding Trumpworld, it is already the custom that no matter how caricatural things are, they must be taken seriously.
It would be good for President Nicușor Dan to return from the bizarre outing to Washington at least with this idea in mind.
From his public statements so far, I still did not understand exactly what justified Romania’s participation. Maybe he will enlighten us when he returns.
Until then, I understood from his brief intervention at the meeting, that he had traveled to Washington to tell Trump face to face what Romania will do for Gaza.
And from Nicușor Dan’s intervention, I understood that, essentially, Romania will not do anything new, other than it already does, but will only increase what it already offers: humanitarian aid in a few points. Very well, that’s not bad at all! Romania and any other self-respecting country must help the population of Gaza more and certainly Romania can do more than it already does.
I also heard him add that in the future Romania could also participate with support in the line of building and consolidating the institutions in the new Gaza – police, justice, etc.
Nicușor Dan should understand three things:
- That such a thing could have been communicated to Washington without being physically present especially since the offer was not outstanding and especially since no partner country in Europe, except Hungary, of course, fell into Trump’s PR trap.
- For Trump, it’s not enough to make an appearance by being there, but you have to come with a generous checkbook if you really want to arouse his interest.
- It’s out of place to say in full view of the world that you can get involved in the consolidation of justice in other parts of the globe just when you are going through a systemic crisis at home in the justice system. You risk appearing unserious and out of touch with reality both in the eyes of those at home and those abroad.
The momentary impression – but the real drama is that there is every chance that the future will reinforce this impression – that the Cotroceni Palace committed a big blunder by attending this Board of Peace.
Some of the arguments are the above.
Another is even more painful: on the open stage and in deep contempt for the rule of law and liberal democracy, Donald Trump expressed his full support for Viktor Orban in the Hungarian elections in April.
Viktor Orban is an ally of Russia, a demolisher of liberalism in his country, a saboteur of the European Union.
Viktor Orban represents what is most dangerous from the perspective of Romania’s national interest, and Nicușor Dan was there. It was there that Donald Trump praised Viktor Orban and urged Hungarians to keep him in office.
Symbolically, the presence of Nicușor Dan was, both for Orban and for Trump, all the more precious as you contrast it with the absence of so many counterparts from Romania’s strategic European partners, who despair of Orban’s attempts to undermine liberal Europe.
I don’t think Romania and Nicușor Dan had as much to gain from America and Donald Trump as they could lose the relationship with European allies.
Perhaps the president and his advisers would have thought that this juggling between the US and Europe would do us good, but Romania has the experience of juggling too much which only lead to muscle ache.
Moreover, President Dan did not attend two essential events in international politics in Davos and Munich, where he would have had the opportunity for substantial contacts (both formal and informal).
Instead, he went to the Board of Peace where we shone through mediocrity and where opportunities for substance were lacking because neither Trump is the man of substance nor does the Board of Peace more than a Trump tool.
And substance is an essential issue and it should be valued even in Cotroceni to the point of being a daily concern of the president’s advisers.
In a recent public explanation why the head of state chose not to participate in the Davos Forum, presidential adviser Marius Lazurca said Nicușor Dan is not the kind of leader who walks “around the world when there are such important things that require his presence at home.”
Passing over the incredibly inappropriate association of Davos, let’s also look at what the same presidential adviser said next: “especially when my advisers cannot build enough substance for my presence in Davos”. So if there’s anyone to blame, I’m the one.” (Details HERE)
We therefore deduce the following:
- That maybe the president would have gone to Davos, but the advisers could not provide him with anything of substance as the adviser quoted above said. The question would therefore be: what kind of substance did they provide for Washington? For in the absence of new explanations, possibly related to the dynamics behind the scenes, what we can see from a distance is the absence of substance on American soil as well.
- That maybe the president would have gone to Davos, but his adviser convinced him not to. We deduce this from another excerpt from the same statement by Marius Lazurca: “When this decision was taken, I must tell you that it was taken not easily and after in-depth and often contradictory discussions about the opportunity of his presence in Davos.” The key term is: adversarial discussions.
Finally, it should also be noted that, shortly before leaving for Washington, some publications reported that the president was inclined not to participate.
In the end, he went. In the photos published n Thursday, with Nicușor Dan and Marco Rubio and others, presidential adviser Marius Lazurca is there.
Could it have been the same story in the Washington case as in the Davos case?
An explanation can only come from the president. And it should be publicly communicated, just as perhaps it would be necessary to clarify divergences between the president and his advisor(
Romania has enough problems of asserting itself externally, both because of internal structural problems, as well as some anachronic mentalities in diplomacy. . We simply didn’t need another one
