Here's why Donald Trump foreign trip was a "foul to right field"

“The times in which we could completely depend on others are on the way out,” she Chancellor Merkel, according to German newspaper Welt. “I’ve experienced that in the last few days.”

Although Donald Trump has typically engaged in self aggrandizement about his failed foreign trip to Saudi Arabia, Isreal, Rome, Europe and Sicily, the facts don't support his declared theory abut the effort being a baseball "home run". In fact, the baseball analogy only works if the evaluation will award the effort as "long foul ball hit to right field".

Here's why Donald Trump's foreign trip failed- it was a foul ball.  

First of all, Donald Trump looked absolutely ridiculous walking in the center of a group of huddled flowing Saudi Arabian sheikhs. After years of mocking Muslims, the appearance of Donald Trump at the center of their flowing attention just didn't pass the straight face test. "Strike one!", for optics.  Black suit amidst sheikhs just didn't work for me. Trump's Saudi effort didn't look genuine on either side of the international equation. Obviously, Donald Trump wants Saudi money and he's willing to sell his soul to get it. 

I hope these ugly photographs don't find their way into New York City's, September 11 Museum.

By the way, that gaudy medallion given to Donald Trump by the Saudi's, created for some "trumped up" ceremonial reason, would not look good in a Presidential history museum. Rather, it looks like the award belongs on an ebay clearance sale.

Second, Donald Trump did not make friends with Pope Francis. 

Rather, he simply visited with the Holy Pontiff. (Pictures said a thousand words.) I don't believe I heard "gracie" or "gracias", in Trump's response to receiving a signed copy of "Laudato Si", about the care of our common environmental home; it was a valuable copy given to Trump, from the Pope's own hands,. This is a beautifully written encyclical, easily understood in any of the languages where translations are available: "...now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her - earth - by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will...".

Like nouveau "American Gothic" rather than a Papal audience.

Third- Melania Trump's amazing and now historic hand slap. Hmmm. Not much more to say about that message.  In other words, "this isn't going well, is it?"

In fact, from the Melania shove to the hobnobbing with sheikhs, no single Trump moment from the foreign trip stood out as inspiring or even plausible.  Melania obviously didn't want her husband to touch her; but the sheikhs were all over the man.

Nevertheless, the ultimate strike against the Donald Trump failed foreign trip was summarized by German Chancellor Angela Merkel  
Following the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Sicily, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Europeans can no longer rely on the United States.

The G7 summit included representatives from the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the European Union. Leaders met to discuss the world economy, foreign policy, climate change and other global issues, and it ended with all countries reaffirming the Paris agreement on climate change—with the exception of the United States.

In its final communique from the summit, the leaders were forced to admit this fact, saying that “the United States of America is in the process of reviewing its policies on climate change and on the Paris Agreement and thus is not in a position to join the consensus on these topics.” (Remembering how Donald Trump did not say "grazie" to the gift given to him by Pope Francis.)

“The entire discussion about climate was very difficult,” Angela Merkel said yesterday, “if not to say very dissatisfying.”

Merkel further echoed those sentiments today before an election rally in Munich, Germany. “The times in which we could completely depend on others are on the way out,” she said, according to German newspaper Welt. 

“I’ve experienced that in the last few days,” said Merkel.

Or, to put another way, in the words of former President George W. Bush (POTUS 43), said after Trump's awful inauguration speech, "Tha't's some weird shit...."

Or, in baseball analogy- the trip was a foul ball on a 3-2 count.