WASHINGTON, D.C. June 12 (DPI) – Posters on major news sites unleashed skepticism and even derision about Trump’s summit meeting today with Kim Jong-Un, reflecting broadly held views that Trump is yet again in over his head – and simply not capable of negotiating the disarmament of North Korea.

Readers, too, went much farther than the US media in dismissing the event as “nothing but a photo op” in which Trump provided legitimacy to a ruthless tyrant who’s family been blackmailing the West for decades.

Trump has already agreed to suspend military exercises with South Korea, but “the devil is in the details,” many wrote, and given that the joint statement of the two leaders contained no details, few took Trump at his word and few recognized any genuine breakthrough.

“Kim had Trump grinning like a schoolboy thinking he’s gonna get lucky on prom night,” wrote one NYTimes.com poster, whose comment was second-most recommended. “Kim has played that idiot like a fiddle.”

Comments on the three top news sites (NYTimes.com, WashingtonPost.com and WSJ.com) were deeply skeptical of Trump’s attempt to dis-arm the North Korean regime, although the WSJ.com comments included a few lauding the president.

The most popular comments on NYTimes.com today:

Trump clearly thinks North Korea, which produces nothing but misery, is more important than Canada, which shielded us from Soviet missiles during the Cold War, fought alongside us in Normandy, rescued our diplomats from Iranian hostage takers and makes us look good on the international stage. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a true gentleman, a man that his countrymen can be proud of “stabbed us in the back” according to the world’s biggest back-stabber. The delusional Don thought Trudeau made him “look weak” in advance of the ad-lib summit with Kim. No, Trudeau, by comparison, made Trump look like a crass, classless, fool. We all know who Trump works for, and it ain’t the American people!

America’s closest allies get the cold shoulder and gratuitous insults. A dictator he meets with for the first time is greeted warmly. So it goes.

With that handshake Trump scores what he perceives to be a massive public relations point with his supporters, who think that the mere fact of this meeting demonstrates (in the words of another commenter) that “this man has gone where no other presidents have, the extra mile, to make life better for the entire world, but America first.” [Whatever that signifies, other than blind faith.] Meanwhile Kim scores a massive public relations coup. With that handshake, Trump pulled him out of the abyss of being an international pariah and granted him equal stature with the President of the United States. For anyone who knows anything about the tyrannical, murderous way that Kim treats his enslaved populace, that’s a ill-considered gift. Trump and his supporters imagine that this is a first step toward something else. Kim looks down at his hand and sees that he just took the gold ring.

Sorry, this is not foreign diplomacy, this is a reality show, replete with coming attraction advertisements all over television and radio.
I can no longer take anything political seriously.

Why is it that Trump smiles and seems more comfortable with brutal dictators than with democratic allies?

Most popular comment on WashingtonPost.com

There is no point here, at least not as far as the US is concerned.
Trump has given legitimacy to North Korea, a world stage for Kim, promises to end military exercises in the area and I am sure there were also promises of lifting of economic sanctions and signing of a peace accord to end the more than six and a half decade conflict on that peninsula.
In return, Trump gets a photo op, a trip to yet another foreign country to meet yet another ruthless dictator and a promise of the end of the NK nuclear program, the exact same promise that his predecessors got.
In the meantime, Trump is destroying our relationships with our friends and allies, all of our trade agreements with every trading partner we have, withdrawn from the working nuclear agreement that we made with one of the most dangerous regimes on planet as well as one of the only agreements that the countries on this planet have had to deal with climate issues, has stirred up a hornets nest in the most volatile area of the world, the Middle East and has increased the influence and power of our biggest foes.
After a year and a half, our net gains from having Trump run things are a HUGE net loss.
if this is winning, I would rather lose.