Good morning. It's Monday, June 11, 2018. Twelve hours after this missive is published, Donald J. Trump is scheduled to meet one-on-one with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore. America's president arrived in Asia in the wake of discordant notes he himself struck at the G-7 meeting in Canada.
Trump began the meeting of America's Western trading partners by grousing that Russia was no longer a member, complained about Germany not paying its share of NATO's costs, accused Canada and the EU of unfair trading practices, rescinded U.S. support for a joint communique on global trade, and then engaged in a war of words with his host -- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau -- after the meeting ended and while Trump was flying to the other side of the world.
If this backdrop was disconcerting, an event on this date in 1945 serves as a reminder of what is at stake in Singapore -- and that the devastation of a trade war pales in comparison to what would happen in a nuclear war.
