March 11th: The Two Donalds: Trump to meet Kim Jong Un and Tusk reminds UK that it's "Ireland first"...

One Big Surprise (Trump to meet Kim Jong Un) and something pretty obvious (Tusk on Ireland) were among key highlights this week….

United States

Trump shocked the world last week by agreeing to meet with Kim Jong Un before the “end of May”. It came out of nowhere and was something very few expected. It does remain to be seen if it is even possible to organise a meeting of this magnitude in such a short timeframe. However, Trump has little regard for due process and protocols so I think he will be able to pull it off.

 Looking slightly ahead, the special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district on Monday should be very interesting. It was a district that Trump won by 19% in 2016. The young Democrats candidate, Conor Lamb, is causing quite a stir. A win for him would be a great boost for the Democrats ahead of the November Congressionals, in which I’ve recently punted on the them re-claiming the House.

United Kingdom/Ireland/Brexit

Donald Tusk hammered May’s proposed solutions for the Irish border on Wednesday. This was to be expected after sources from the EU have continually poured water on the alleged progress being made on the issue over the last few weeks. He went further and said;

“If in London someone assumes that the Brexit negotiations will deal with other issues first, before moving to the Irish issue, my response would be: Ireland first.”

I’ll continue to follow Brexit closely as it impinges upon most of the political arenas I follow closely…