EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France — Appearing exhausted and at times unwell, President Donald Trump on Wednesday left the G7 summit similar to the way he entered it, with tortured, increasingly bizarre explanations of his new agreement to end his war with Iran.
Strait of Hormuz Claims
“You can only go so far. You drive somebody into the ground and a lot of bad things happen. Number one, the strait would never open,” he told reporters at an early afternoon photo opportunity, eliding the obvious fact that the Strait of Hormuz was fully open to oil tanker traffic before he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began their attacks nearly four months ago.
He repeated his familiar lie, multiple times, that former President Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement with Iran that Trump tore up during his first term provided “a pathway” to a nuclear weapon.
Details of the New Deal
In fact, Trump’s much-touted “deal” is more a ratification of the existing-but-loosely-adhered-to ceasefire, a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran that amounts to a form of reparations, and an immediate end to sanctions and permission to export its own oil. In return, Iran will facilitate the reopening of the strait within 30 days, while all issues regarding Iran’s nuclear program are to be negotiated over the next 60 days, a period that is subject to renewals upon agreement of both parties.
“It’s complete apples and oranges at this point,” said Ned Price, a former CIA officer who later served in the Obama and Biden administrations. “The JCPOA was a nonproliferation agreement. This is a commitment to start negotiating a nuclear deal, while in the meantime providing far more concessions than the JCPOA ever contemplated.”
Trump’s Behavior at the Summit
Trump had spent weeks disparaging the members of the world’s seven largest democratic economies for refusing to help him with his war, even though he had not consulted any of them before starting it. He appears to have remained comparatively polite with them in person through the three-day conference at a resort hotel in the French Alps town famous for its spring water, although that may have been more a function of exhaustion than civility.
At one point, Trump either didn’t hear or didn’t understand summit host Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, when he asked everyone to look toward the photographers for a group photo of a work session. Trump was the only leader looking off in a different direction.
Later, he seemed to get confused looking for a way down from an outdoor stage after standing for some long moments by himself, staring off into the distance as all the other participants chatted and mingled. Wednesday morning, he arrived an hour late for the first leaders’ meeting of the day, prompting Macron to start without him. And for the first two days of the conference, one side of his mouth and face frequently drooped downward.
Comparisons to Biden
Trump spent years as he was running to regain the White House disparaging President Joe Biden’s misstatements and elderly tics, claiming they were evidence of dementia.
“When the camera catches him walking around or in an unguarded moment, he certainly looks exhausted. And heavier too,” said Jim Townsend, a former Defense Department official in the Obama administration. “He kind of shambles along in an ill-fitting suit.”
Typical Behavior on Display
In some ways, Trump’s performance at the summit was typical of his normal behavior when interacting with others. He managed to lie about the 2020 election being stolen from him as he praised Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi. He boasted about the kickboxing bouts he had staged on the White House South Lawn for his birthday Sunday multiple times, including at least once at a meeting of all seven leaders. In nearly all interactions with the press, Trump launched into long rambles, sometimes with a tangential-at-best connection to the topic at hand.
Responding to a question Wednesday about his new Iran ceasefire agreement, for example, Trump responded with 657 words, explaining how he was the one who had killed Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani in 2020, how oil prices would have hit $300 per barrel if he had not been sneaking tankers through the strait each night over the past months, how Obama had loaded a Boeing 757 with “cash, green cash, from banks” to give Iran, how Iranians had called Obama “a stupid son of a bitch.”
Assessment of Iranian Leadership
Trump, over the course of the three days, also said the new leaders of Iran are “very rational” and “not radicalized” — most analysts disagree, and believe the U.S. attacks instead strengthened hard-liners within the Iranian regime — while stating that Israel should stop attacking the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon and instead turn that task over to the new leader of Syria. Trump caps off his G7 visit with a planned dinner Wednesday evening at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris at the invitation of Macron.
