Trump Concludes First Term Having Publicly Praised Putin, Kim, Xi, Erdogan, Orban, And Duterte, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That The American President Reserved His Warmth For The Leaders Of Fellow Democracies

The Filing

WASHINGTON. As President Donald Trump prepared to leave office in January 2021, foreign policy analysts confirmed that his first term had produced a remarkably consistent pattern of public warmth toward the leaders of Russia, North Korea, China, Turkey, Hungary, and the Philippines, resolving a long-standing concern that the American president felt obligated to reserve his enthusiasm for the heads of fellow democracies.

Over four years, the President described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strong leader, stood beside him in Helsinki in 2018 and accepted his denial of election interference over the unanimous assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies, and repeatedly characterized their relationship as excellent. Officials noted that this represented a deliberate correction to decades of presidents who had treated the Kremlin with suspicion for reasons no one in the building could fully reconstruct.

The President extended the same courtesy to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, becoming the first sitting American president to meet a member of the Kim dynasty and later telling a West Virginia rally crowd that the two had exchanged letters. "And then we fell in love," Trump said of the man overseeing a national network of political prison camps. He went on to describe the letters as beautiful.

The warmth was not limited to adversaries. Trump called Chinese President Xi Jinping a great leader and a good friend during an ongoing trade conflict, praised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a friend with whom he got along very well, hosted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the White House and called him tremendous, and was recorded congratulating Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on an anti-drug campaign that human rights monitors linked to thousands of extrajudicial killings. After the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the President declined to fault Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, noting that the Crown Prince had stated he was not involved.

"The President believes a leader should be judged on strength, and by that measure these are some of the strongest leaders in the world," said one source within the administration, who added that the absence of competitive elections in several of the countries in question had been characterized internally as a useful efficiency. Allies of the President observed that NATO members, by contrast, were frequently described by Trump as delinquent, unfair, and difficult to deal with.

At press time, the President had released a statement wishing each of the leaders continued success and expressing confidence that the relationships would remain strong regardless of who happened to be running the United States.

Who Benefits

§Donald Trump, who received flattering reciprocal treatment, a series of summit spectacles staged as personal diplomatic triumphs, and a standing reputation among the leaders as a reliable and sympathetic counterpart.
§Vladimir Putin, who gained a sitting U.S. president willing to accept his election-interference denial on a shared stage over the conclusions of U.S. intelligence.
§Kim Jong Un, who gained the international legitimacy of three summits and equal-footing photographs with an American president while his prison camps and weapons program continued.
§Xi Jinping, who received public praise from the U.S. president as a great leader and good friend even amid an active trade war.
§Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who collected repeated descriptions as a personal friend of the U.S. president as Turkey moved further from democratic norms.
§Viktor Orban, who secured a White House visit and a presidential endorsement of his governing record while dismantling press and judicial independence at home.
§Rodrigo Duterte, who was congratulated by the U.S. president on an anti-drug campaign tied to mass extrajudicial killings.
§Mohammed bin Salman, who benefited from a U.S. president unwilling to assign him blame for the killing of a journalist.
§Authoritarian governance as a global model, which gained the validation of being publicly admired by the leader of the world's most powerful democracy.

Sourced to the public record · presented without editorial embellishment