Barry Soper: Imagine 'The Don' in the White House

Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump flashes two thumbs up as he introduces his wife Melania during the opening day of the Republican National Convention. Photo / AP

Opinion

Visiting the White House with the Prime Minister's always been an interesting exercise.

Despite what people think, many staff there work in cramped conditions and the White House press corp's packed into tiny offices which sit on a floor above the disused swimming poll where JFK used to entertain Marilyn Monroe.

The travelling media contingent with our PM gets into a lounge off the Oval Office at the end of their meeting to hear their full, frank and usually meaningless explanation of what they had discussed.

On our last trip to meet with George W Bush we were even told that we could ask a question which didn't happen though because the American media came in so at the last minute it was canned because the President couldn't possibly be expected to answer questions for a domestic audience. They have spokesmen to do that for them.

Imagine what it'd be like if The Don gets to occupy the place, although with Trump's dislike of the media an audience would probably be out of the question.

Certainly there'd be many issues that we'd like to discuss with him, given the views he expressed as the Republican convention drew to a close last Friday.

The Trans Pacific Partnership springs to mind with Trump saying it's not going to happen. He's not gong to have foreign governments tell him what to do.

Trump says he'll be doing individual deals which means we'll once again probably be at the back of the queue but at least we'd likely get in the door before the Chinese. It seems that Trump dislikes the Chinese more than he does the Mexicans.

Relations between Beijing and a Trump run Washington would make the Cold War look like a sauna. Having said they can't afford to be politically correct anymore, he lived up to it, telling China it was an outrageous thief of intellectual property, was the greatest currency manipulator ever and was acting illegally by dumping its surplus product around the world.

So clearly the Chinese President won't be beating a path to the Trump White house door anytime soon.

The Republican convention was pure political theatre, it was a spectacle. The old idiom that it's better to ignore your enemies was lost on those attending this event with Hillary Clinton painted as the she-devil incarnate with Trump saying that corruption in Washington's reached a level never seen before and with his opponent at the centre of it.

That lead to deafening chants of "lock her up" with delegates clearly taking their queue from The Don.

This week it's Hillary's turn.