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MediaJune 12, 2018

A yuge and groundbreaking analysis of the Trump-Kim staredown in Singapore

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The ‘Nectarine Nero’ meets Kim Jong-un in Singapore today to pursue the shared goals of peace in Korea and a lovely Nobel prize. Don Rowe breaks down the 30 seconds or so the pair spent with the press ahead of their talks today.

Well how about that, the Apprentice guy is in Singapore negotiating for an end to the Korean War and the total denuclearisation of everybody’s favourite rogue state. Like any heavyweight collision, the Singapore summit kicked off with a good old fashioned staredown, both boys getting up close and personal and sizing up their opponent. Mostly they just shook hands, but frame by frame we have analysed their body language, bald spots and bad suits for even the barest hint for how things might go today in the East.

Pundits take a hike, here’s what today’s proceedings actually meant.

00:01 The men enter the room – Kim from the left, Trump from the right, signifying their particular takes on tyrannical ideology. Trump’s barely out the door when he extends his hand. Kim’s flared pant catches a breeze.

00:02 Seriously, Kim’s pants are preposterous. What year is this? It’s like tracksuits appearing in Slavic culture twenty years late, except that this suit was never cool.

00:03 Trump grabs Kim’s arm, checking his suit for shoulder pads and sizing up who’s got the bigliest bi’s at the summit. It’s unclear whether both men are wearing lifts, but for a change Trump looks comparatively svelte. This is a guy out-graced by Angela Merkel, after all. Mercifully somebody has fixed Trump’s suit from the G7 – variously described as ill-fitting, boxy and a catastrophe – but Kim’s remains a total fucking disaster. Apparently tailored suits are contraband in the hermit kingdom. Instead it’s fashionable to wear your dad’s.

00:07 As the camera zooms in, Trump rambles something unintelligible. “It’s really good to be here,” replies Kim in a high, reedy voice. What is with these despots and their baby voices? Even Putin sounds like a guy who sells wool cardigans. Trump might talk a lot of shit, but at least he has the voice for it.

00:16 Trump presents Kim to the media: “These fucking guys, right?” Kim smiles; as a man educated in Switzerland he knows what a camera is. Maybe even understands the role of the free press. That would make one of them.

00:17 The weirdest buddy-cop movie yet. It just doesn’t seem fair that these are the guys who decide if we enter a thousand year winter. The Apprentice guy has nukes and he’s negotiating with a murderous little dictator with a shit haircut and a bad suit. These are the guys who make the call. SMH.

00:25 Kim stares deep into Trump’s bald spot. Like the shiny candyfloss which masks his pink dome, Kim knows that Trump’s friendliness is a facade to hide how badly he needs a win after a disastrous G7. When the president of the United States is entering negotiations with a hostile power desperate for a win, you know we’re living in strange times. “This is the fella who just gave his top economic advisor a heart attack,” thinks Kim.

00:26 Trump caresses Kim’s chin as a lover might. Perhaps the men will find common ground after all.

00:27 He simply cannot keep his hands off his new best friend. PDA is the real Art of the Deal.

00:35 Trump rushes off to negotiate potential denuclearisation. Without his translator. God help us all.

Suitably terrified now? Check out the latest forecast from our exclusive Kim-Trump summit Armageddon Monitor, designed by Spinoff cartoonist Toby Morris.

Keep going!