"Trump makes himself the axis on which events in Asia and Europe spin" — spins WaPo.

That's the front-page teaser. Inside, it's "Trump rebrands diplomatic norms as events in Asia, Europe and elsewhere spin on his axis." Speaking of branding, the WaPo brand is out-and-proud hostility to Trump, and that doesn't let up when there's news that might inspire some glimmers of hope that Trump's method might do some good:

President Trump on Friday placed himself at the center of the remarkable summit between the leaders of North and South Korea, taking credit for bold and innovative diplomacy that may open a path to peace where other leaders failed.

That's the paraphrase, and here's the actual quote:

“It’s certainly something that I hope I can do for the world,” Trump said. “This is beyond the United States. This is a world problem, and it’s something that I hope I’m able to do for the world.”

Trump's quote sounds rather modest to me, but WaPo insists that we see it as raging narcissism.

The dramatic turn of events on the Korean Peninsula was the capstone to a week that crystallized the ways Trump has established his foreign policy approach as one that rests largely on the pride he takes in busting the old conventions of diplomatic negotiations and remaking them in his image...

By the way, I'm surprised WaPo accepts the slang "busting" (for "bursting").

“We get a kick every once in a while out of the fact that I’ll be watching people that failed so badly over the last 25 years explaining to me how to make a deal with North Korea,” Trump cracked during a White House news conference Friday with [Angela] Merkel. “ I get a big, big kick out of that.”...

Trump, who is broadly unpopular in Germany, shrugged off a German reporter’s question about his “aggressive tweeting” and blunt diplomatic style.

“I believe that — you know, when I look at the numbers in Germany — and some other countries, they may not like Donald Trump but you have to understand, that means I’m doing a good job because I’m representing the United States,” he said.

I don't see how that's making himself "the axis on which events in Asia and Europe spin." He's saying he representing the United States and not purporting to represent the interests of the whole world. The leaders of other countries must and do represent their own countries, and it's not fair for the United States, uniquely, to subordinate its interests to everyone else's. That's not making himself the central axis.

By the way, "axis" is a terrible word to stick in our head when you're trying to sell the idea of the virtue of Germany — "Europe’s most populous country, and is the longest-serving leader among the major European powers — a mainstay of the kind of cautious consensus politics Trump instinctively rejects"?

Longest-serving, like all the way back to the 1930s and 40s?

In 1936, Benito Mussolini said, “This Berlin-Rome protocol is not a barrier, it is rather an axis around which all European States animated by a desire for peace may collaborate on trouble." That's quoted in "Why We Call the Axis Powers the Axis Powers" (Smithsonian).