Trump loves dictators like Putin and Xi. But he has illusions about them.

This is part of Hello, TrumpworldSlates is reluctantly guiding the people who will take charge now, at least for as long as they last in Washington.

Donald Trump's return to the White House brings joy to the world's biggest tyrants, a fact that Trump not only acknowledges, but boasts about with pride.

Trump brags about being with Russian President Vladimir Putin get by, as if that alone would bode well for the world. (Agreement is a laudable goal in itself for allies and neutrals, but when it comes to adversaries, understanding is a more productive goal.) He said the same about Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, adding of Kim, I like him and he likes me. He also praises his friendship with Victor Orbncalling him one of the most respected men, unaware or indifferent to the fact that the Hungarian president is in fact the most despised leader in the European Union, an open ally of Putin and the most active obstacle to unity of the EU and NATO. As for Orbn's strongman leadership style, Trump agrees: He's a tough, smart person.

The president's assumption here is that because these leaders are strong, because he likes them and they like him, and because they get along well, they can make deals together. Through their friendship, he can get them to do things that other presidents can't do.

This is Trump's illusion. Firstly, they're not really friends; he thinks they are showing him respect, when in fact they are just pushing him over the edge, having learned from his previous four years in the White House that he will treat them well, or at least not treat them harshly , if they claim to show him respect. (I like people who like me, Trump once said, in effect showing foreign leaders the way to his appeasement.)

Second, he fails to understand that most leaders act in accordance with their interests, which are often very different from the interests, in some cases antithetical, to those of the United States. interests. He doesn't understand this essential fact of international politics very well because he doesn't understand American interests very well. areexcept when they coincide with its own commercial interests.

The fact is that during his first term, Trump's overtures toward dictators brought no benefit to the United States. At a joint press conference with Putin in Helsinki, Trump said he trusted the Russian president's assurances more than his own intelligence analysts. When he asked whether the Kremlin had tried to influence the US elections, despite this and other examples of kowtowing, he got nothing from Putin, either at the Finnish summit or throughout his four years in office. Trump now says Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if he had been president, but Putin waged a war in Ukraine, starting in 2014 and continuing throughout Trump's first term, without hesitation. (This war was limited to the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, but it was not a simple border skirmish; more than 14,000 people were killed in the fights, Before the full invasion which began in February 2022.)

In any case, Putin has already rejected, as nothing interesting, the outline of the plan presented by Trump to end the war in Ukraine. Trump, who said he would end the war before he was even sworn in, finds that these things are harder to fix than they seem. Will he take revenge on Putin for betraying him? Since Trump seems genuinely reluctant to continue supplying Ukraine with billions of dollars in weapons, it's not clear how. Putin does not seem to be afraid.

Trump similarly held two summits with Kim during his first term, beaming about their friendship before, during and after, even boasting at one rally that the two had fallen in love after an exchange of relationships. love lettersand yet, once again, I left with nothing. Indeed, Kim had no interest in revealing the size and location of his nuclear arsenal, let alone committing to dismantling it. At one point in their meetings, Trump showed Kim a slideshow on how he could turn the North Korean coast into lucrative resort propertyas if Kim had the slightest interest in such a project.

At least Trump has no illusions that Xi could adhere to fairer trade practices on the basis of some camaraderie. But he appears to believe that punishing tariffs, or the threat of them, would force Xi to relent. Trump does not seem to realize that Xi prepared his own set of responsesprimarily involving the breakdown of US and Western supply chains, many of which still involve China. Xi believes that, given the Chinese Communist Party's control over his country's economy (and his own personal control over the CCP), he can outlast Trump in this type of asymmetric trade war.

Orbn is an authoritarian leader who sincerely wants to maintain warm relations with the new American president. It faces challenges within the EU. European leaders know they must please Trump, at least to some extent, being dependent on the United States for security (through the US-led NATO) and economic stability (through the dollar and the international financial system). So, to appease the American president, Orbn might believe he could put pressure on the Europeans to ease any sanctions they might impose on Hungary. The only problem is that Hungary has very little to offer the United States in return, except a deeper association with the least democratic regime in Europe.

For many, it remains a mystery why Trump behaves so deferentially toward tyrants. Some people think that Putin must have control over him, money, blackmail, something like that. Whether this is true or not, Trump would most likely treat Putin the same way he has treated him all these years because, deep down, Trump respects the people who hold the ultimate power. More than that, he desires them.

In a Interview with Fox News In 2018, Trump said about North Korea's Kim, right after their first summit, that he is the leader of a country, and I mean, he is the strong leader. He speaks and his people stand to attention. I want my people to do the same.

Likewise, last October, just before the elections, in a interview with Joe RoganTrump called China's Xi a brilliant guy. He controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. I mean, he's a brilliant guy whether you like it or not, the suggestion being that controlling so many people with an iron fist is an impressive thing, that only a brilliant guy could achieve.

As many have recognized, although Trump has a strong sense of populist politics, he has no deep attachment to democratic institutions. He does not recognize, although he soon will, that this congenial relationship with tyrannical rulers does not win him any favor in the world. back.

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