Meeting Marcelo “a great honour”, says President Trump

In the end it was very much a meeting characterised by what wasn’t said, or mentioned – but the banalities exchanged by the two presidents spoke volumes.

Tweeting later, President Trump uploaded a little video clip of Marcelo’s visit to the White House, saying : “Today it was my great honor to welcome President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to the WhiteHouse” (click here).

Those few words – and the fact that he even wrote them – show that the ‘leader of the free world’ can show humility in the face of quality.

He even jested to reporters that Marcelo had managed an audience with Russia’s President Putin before he did (Trump’s meeting with Putin has just been announced for July 16 in Helsinki, Finland).

But the rest of the soundbites emerging in the Oval Office in front of battalions of cameramen and reporters were straight out of Disney.

The name of Cristiano Ronaldo apparently “broke the ice” that was not even visible between the two men, and Marcelo revealed that, Portugal has a “great probability” of winning the World Cup.

This led Trump into the question: “Tell me, if Cristiano ran against you…” – adding quickly: “He wouldn’t win. You know he won’t”, whereupon Marcelo played something of a trump card:

“You know something, I must tell you. Portugal is not just the United States… It’s a little bit different. The political system is different. We are different”.

As to what the two men said behind closed doors, before the ‘banter session’, we may never know.

Reports talk about “commercial agreements” with Europe and the fact that President Trump will be meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker to discuss them, but there are still no indications of what might emerge.

President Marcelo apparently gave the US president a facsimile of the charter in which Queen D. Maria 1 recognised the Independence of the United States in 1783, while he offered the First Lady a pair of filigree earrings from Viana do Castelo.

Among the many ‘little asides’ of the meeting, Marcelo told his host: “”I don’t know if you know it, but your Founding Fathers celebrated independence with our wine — with Madeira wine. They made a toast with our Madeira wine.”

Associated Press reports that President Trump responded :”Good taste.”

natasha.donn@algarveresident.com