MAY 3, 2017
Photo: Reuters
Why does cozying up to dictators seem to arouse Donald Trump so?
Over the past week or so, President Trump has reached out to a number of international strongmen to congratulate and/or just kiss up to them.
On Monday in an interview with Bloomberg News, Trump said that, under the right circumstances, he would be “honored” to meet with brutal North Korean dictator KIm Jong Un, who, even after a series of weekly failed missile tests, still threatens to nuke the U.S. just as soon as he develops such an weapon.
Honored? Honored?????
That wasn’t all. Making the rounds of the Sunday morning news shows last weekend, Trump revealed the source of his new-found admiration for the North Korean dictator:
“At a very young age, he was able to assume power. A lot of people, I’m sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else. And he was able to do it. So obviously, he’s a pretty smart cookie.”
Trump has a point here. Kim did hold onto power against the machinations of his uncle by doing the most logical thing possible. He had his uncle murdered. A pretty smart cookie, at least by Trump’s standards.
If this was Trump’s only public snuggle with a despot, I suppose you might excuse it as a shift in Trump’s master plan, trying to kill Kim with kindness. (That presumes, I guess, that Trump even has a strategy regarding Kim.) But Kim is only the latest strongman whom Trump has been trying to woo.
In April, the White House red carpet was rolled out to welcome Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who in 2013 staged a coup, overthrowing Egypt’s democratically-elected president, slaughtering more than 800 protesters in a single day and imprisoning tens of thousands of “dissidents.”
Then there is Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who in mid-April, called for a referendum that would in fact, wildly expand the power of the president, almost to the point of dictatorship. The referendum passed under extremely shady circumstances, appalling the world’s leaders. All but one. Trump phoned Erdoğan to congratulate him on his victory.
Perhaps the worst move, however, was Trump’s invitation to Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte (pictured above) to be received at the White House. Duterte, who came to power in 2016 on a platform of waging a war on drugs, has been an international embarrassment since. His idea of a drug war is murdering anyone who uses or sells drugs without a trial, and he encouraged civilians to kill anyone they know with a drug problem. According to Amnesty International, over 7000 Filipinos have been extra-judicially killed to date, and if some of those slain happen to be Duterte’s political opponents, so much the better. Why would Trump will opening the White House doors for someone like this? Could it be because Trump Tower Manila is scheduled to open later this year? Just asking.
All this, while Trump has been giving the back of his hand to some of America’s closest allies. Remember when he called the President of Australia and yelled at him for 10 minutes? (I mean, who picks a fight with Australia?) And don’t even get me started on Trump’s attitude toward some of our staunchest allies whose nations are being led by women. There was, of course, Trump’s refusal to even shake hands with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. And when his back was pressed against the wall to provide any proof that President Obama wire-tapped him, Trump suggested that Obama probably did it with the help of British intelligence. (British Prime Minister Theresa May was reportedly furious at the very suggestion.)
Maybe there’s a genius plan behind all of this, with Trump assembling all of the world’s worst leaders to form a dictator version of “Suicide Squad,” where they will bond together to do good.
Somehow, though, I doubt it.
