Wednesday, March 13, 2024 | 2 a.m.
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Now that the primaries have all but confirmed Donald Trump as the GOP’s presidential candidate, he is already displaying the way he intends to conduct foreign policy if reelected. He plans to be a one-man show, in cahoots with authoritarian rulers whose unfettered power he admires.
In the unlikely case you’ve forgotten Trump’s long history of autocrat envy, you had only to observe his hosting of far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at Mar-a-Lago on Friday. A longtime favorite of Trump’s, Orbán is the most antidemocratic and openly racist (and antisemitic) leader in Europe. He is also the most anti-Ukraine and pro-Moscow leader in the European Union and NATO.
Unlike Trump’s disdain for most of America’s democratic allies in Europe, however, the GOP candidate has praised Orbán as a “great leader” and “strong man,” adding that “some people don’t like him because he’s too strong.” Obviously, Trump was comparing himself with Orbán in that last statement.
Yet, the “strong leaders” he so admires ran rings around him when he was in office. Convinced that, as he insisted, “Only I can fix it,” he was oblivious to how they played him.
If reelected, Trump’s resistance to facts and determination to fire any officials who challenge him will make him a perfect patsy for the new anti-Western axis of Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang, which are teaming up to weaken America.
A quick look at Trump’s past foreign policy failures in sucking up to dictators makes clear how a continuation would lead America to more grief.
Trump feted Xi Jinping with a black-tie gala at Mar-a-Lago in hopes Xi would slash the U.S. trade deficit with China and help do a nuclear deal with Pyongyang. Neither happened. Their relationship soured and turned into a trade war, even as Beijing built up its military strength unchecked.
Trump wooed Kim Jong Un in the expectation that Kim would respond by ending North Korea’s nuclear program. “He wrote me beautiful letters and we fell in love,” said the former president. That relationship collapsed, and Kim has vastly expanded his nuclear and missile arsenal since then. He is also sending missiles to Vladimir Putin for use in Ukraine.
Trump abandoned President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, which had slashed Tehran’s capacity to make a nuclear bomb. Trump said he could do a better deal with the ayatollahs, but that went nowhere. Released from all limits on enriching uranium, Iran now has enough to make six bombs in a month, according to respected experts. Meantime, Russia may give Iran further nuclear weapons technology in return for more drones to use against Ukraine.
And then there is Trump’s ongoing, bizarre bromance with Putin.
The cynical Orbán, who has cracked down on the free press and voting rights at home, is a stalking horse for Putin. He has endeared himself to Trump with constant, lavish praise of the ex-president, and with his white, Christian brand of nationalism that denounces “mixing races.”
But then Orbán goes on to parrot the Putin mantra that Kyiv can’t win and that Trump should break with other NATO allies and do a deal with Putin to end the war in Ukraine. Trump’s admiration for Orbán is just one more check on the Russian leader’s scorecard as he continues to bamboozle his pal Trump.
The GOP candidate’s constant praise for — and refusal to criticize — Putin became legendary during his four years in office. What is shocking — if Trump can still shock — is that he still doesn’t seem to realize that Putin’s current behavior directly threatens the United States.
Trump still talks of going to Moscow and settling the Ukraine war with Putin in 24 hours. In fact, his approach is guaranteed to hand a dangerous victory to Moscow, along with China, North Korea and Iran.
The former president has swallowed Putin’s lie that Russia is protecting Russian speakers in Ukraine by seizing parts of that country. In fact, most Ukrainians speak Russian but consider themselves Ukrainian. Putin has murdered more Russian speakers in Ukraine than anyone since Adolf Hitler.
Yet, Trump has already instructed GOP members of Congress to reject desperately needed aid for Ukraine, directly leading to recent Russian territorial gains as Ukrainians run out of ammunition. He appears ready to hand that nation over to brutal imperial domination by Russia.
Putin will take Trump’s acquiescence on Ukraine as a clear signal that Russia is free to expand its aspirational empire further, as it has already begun doing: nibbling or biting at other European countries, blowing up internet undersea cables that serve the United States, militarizing the Arctic waters, and threatening to send nuclear weapons into space — both frontiers where the U.S. has critical interests.
Trump appears equally blind — or indifferent — to the fact that China will take a Ukraine defeat as a signal it is free to move on Taiwan.
Given these threats, our NATO alliance in Europe has never been more vital since the end of World War II, especially with new members Sweden and Finland. Yet, Trump nearly quit the alliance as president and is still threatening to destroy it. He falsely claimed that NATO is not meeting its financial obligations. NATO members are giving Ukraine twice as much aid as we are, and most members now meet the NATO goal of spending 2% of GDP on defense.
Putin need only sit back and smile as he watches the GOP’s leader strengthen the Kremlin at the expense of the United States.
What scares me the most is that, in a second term, Trump’s failures at playing strong man may become so obvious that he feels pressured to strike out to prove his machismo. Recall his war of words with Kim (before declaring his love). The former president called the North Korean leader “little rocket man” and boasted that his nuclear button was bigger while Kim threatened “all-out war.”
Looking back, those verbal battles look like farce. Next time, however, an ego-driven Trump, unrestrained, might take reckless actions to prove his toughness and unintentionally trigger a real war.
That is the risk GOP voters will need to consider before they cast their votes.
Trudy Rubin is a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
