Smile, flatter and barter: How the world is prepping for Trump 2.0
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For months leading up to Donald Trump’s political comeback, foreign leaders have rushed, once again, to ingratiate themselves with him.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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When British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York City for dinner on Sept 26, it was part of a British charm offensive to nurture a relationship between a left-wing leader and a right-wing potential president.
So, when Trump turned to Mr Starmer before parting and told him, “We are friends”, according to a person involved in the evening, it did not go unnoticed.
Whether they stay friends is anybody’s guess.
For months leading up to Trump’s political comeback
Some leaders, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, are crafting their pitches to appeal to Trump’s transactional nature; others, such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have deployed teams of officials to the United States to visit dozens of Republican leaders in the hope that they can moderate Trump’s most radical instincts on imposing tariffs.
History suggests that many of these bridge-building efforts will fail. By the end of his first term, Trump had soured on several leaders with whom he started off on good terms. His protectionist trade policy and aversion to alliances – coupled with a mercurial personality – fuelled clashes that overrode the rapport that the leaders had laboured to cultivate.
“There were two misapprehensions about Trump,” Mr Malcolm Turnbull, a former prime minister of Australia, said in an interview. “The first was – he would be different in office than he was on the campaign trail. The second was – the best way to deal with him was to suck up to him.”
In January 2017, Mr Turnbull had a notoriously hostile phone call with Trump over whether the US would honour an Obama-era deal to accept 1,250 refugees, which Trump opposed, even though the US did end up taking them. Mr Turnbull said he later found other common ground with Trump, even talking him out of imposing tariffs on some Australian exports.
The difference this time, Mr Turnbull said, is that “everybody knows exactly what they’re going to get. He’s highly transactional. You’ve got to be able to demonstrate that a particular course of action is in his interest”.
Well before the election, leaders began anticipating a Trump victory by seeking him out. Mr Zelensky met him in New York
A populist whose autocratic style is a model for some in Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga) movement, Mr Orban has come, perhaps, the closest to cracking the code with Trump. The two meet and speak regularly by phone, and they heap praise on each other in what has become a mutual admiration society.
Mr Orban, Trump has said, is a “very great leader, a very strong man”, whom some do not like only “because he’s too strong”. Mr Orban, for his part, has praised Trump as the only hope for peace in Ukraine and for the defeat of “woke globalists”.
How to convince Trump
Convincing Trump that Ukraine’s priorities are in his own interest lies at the heart of Mr Zelensky’s lobbying strategy.
Trump’s scepticism about military support for Ukraine against Russia is well known. He claims he could end the war in a day, perhaps even before taking office, although he has not said how.
Analysts fear he will force Mr Zelensky into a peace settlement with Russian President Vladimir Putin that would entrench Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine.
At their meeting in New York, Mr Zelensky made the case that defending Ukraine is in the economic interests of the US.
That is because much of the United States’ military assistance benefits the country’s own defence contractors – for example, Lockheed Martin, which makes the Himars rocket system that has become a vital weapon in the Ukrainian arsenal.
Ukrainian officials have worked with Republican allies in Washington to develop new ways of structuring military aid, including the creation of a US$500 billion (S$663 billion) lend-lease programme to help Ukraine defend itself.
That is the brainchild of Mr Mike Pompeo, a former secretary of state and Central Intelligence Agency director in the first Trump administration who may take a prominent role in the new one.
“In my opinion, we should take a proactive position,” said Mr Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s foreign affairs committee. “It’s especially important and timely while Trump is beginning to form his administration and foreign policy team, and while the new Congress is beginning to form.”
Mr Merezhko says he has read several books on Trump’s first term to help him understand how to navigate a Trump restoration. He also held two meetings – one in Washington and one in Lithuania – with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy institute whose ranks are filled with people who served in the Trump administration or on his campaign or transition teams.
Mr Zelensky and Trump have baggage. Trump’s 2019 phone call to the Ukrainian leader,
On Nov 6, however, Mr Zelensky won a coveted place near the top of Trump’s list of well-wishers, and he offered the President-elect unstinting praise for what he called a “historic and landslide victory”.
“It was a very warm conversation,” Mr Zelensky said. He did not mention that Trump had put Mr Elon Musk, the Silicon Valley billionaire who backed his campaign, on the phone with them.
Casting a wide net
Canada, too, has cast a wide net to influence the incoming administration. Starting last January, Mr Trudeau deployed Cabinet ministers on regular visits to the US to meet federal and state officials to promote the value of the sprawling US-Canada trade relationship.
Trump has said he wants all imported goods to be subject to a 10 per cent tariff or higher.
Mr Trudeau has had a star-crossed relationship with Trump. Once quite chummy, the two fell out over tariffs, with Trump walking out of a Group of Seven meeting in Canada in 2018 and calling Mr Trudeau “dishonest and weak”.
But Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has maintained good relations with Mr Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s top adviser on trade, from their work together negotiating a successor trade agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Ms Freeland said she and Mr Lighthizer had recently discussed how a flood of Chinese imports hollowed out manufacturing in the United States and hurt middle-class workers. “That’s an area where Ambassador Lighthizer and I are very strongly in agreement,” she told reporters.
Insiders and outsiders
Engaging a new Trump administration is easier for some countries than others. For several months, Israeli officials have given briefings about the war in the Gaza Strip to Mr Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who worked on Middle East issues during his first term, and Mr David Friedman, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Israel, said two Israeli officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive meetings.
Mr Yossi Dagan, an Israeli settler leader who campaigned for Trump, has already been invited to attend his inauguration in Washington, said a spokeswoman for Mr Dagan, Ms Esther Allush.
Mr Dagan hosted Mr Friedman at an event to promote Mr Friedman’s book One Jewish State in October.
Mr Netanyahu, like Mr Trudeau, has had his ups and downs with Trump. During his first term, Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital
After his fence-mending visit to Mar-a-Lago, Mr Netanyahu was among the first leaders to call Trump
That was restrained, compared with the wording used by other leaders. Kenya’s President William Ruto, the only African leader hosted by Mr Biden for a state visit, said Trump’s win was a tribute to his “visionary, bold and innovative leadership”.
Taiwan, whose self-rule is under threat from an increasingly expansionist China, is among the global hot spots most eager to win Trump’s ear. In 2016, Trump took a phone call from Ms Tsai Ing-wen, then Taiwan’s president, a break with US convention against high-level political contacts with Taiwan after Washington shifted diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979.
That presaged stronger support for Taiwan under Trump. But his mood towards the island has since cooled, and there are no signs so far of a call between him and the current Taiwanese president, Mr Lai Ching-te. Both Mr Lai and Chinese President Xi Jinping sent congratulatory messages to Trump.
In the European Union, anxiety about Trump’s return has also led to pre-emptive brainstorming. In recent weeks, Mr Bjoern Seibert, the top aide to the president of the European Commission, Dr Ursula von der Leyen, has held small group sessions with ambassadors to discuss scenarios for the next administration. These have concentrated on Trump and trade, several European officials said.
European diplomats are realistic about the task that confronts them. But they cling to the idea that with the proper approach, Trump can be swayed.
Ms Karen Pierce, Britain’s Ambassador to the United States, said: “With President Trump, it’s the art of the possible. If you can explain what we can do together and how we can improve things in a significant way, then you can make progress.”
Ms Pierce’s predecessor as ambassador, Mr Kim Darroch, was forced to leave his post after a British newspaper leaked his diplomatic cables critical of Trump. Perhaps understandably, he takes a warier view of the value of outreach to Trump.
“It’s essential to do it. It’s remiss not to do it,” Mr Darroch said. “But I’m sceptical that we will shift him on issues where he’s made public commitments, whether tariffs or ending US arms supplies to Ukraine.” NYTIMES
