American weakness
It’s remarkable to hear top intelligence officials, who value discretion more than most, bluntly characterizing the president of the United States as vulnerable to the flattery and deception of foreign dictators. But President Trump’s Asian tour rendered their grim assessment a statement of the obvious.
Former CIA Director John Brennan told CNN on Sunday that Trump “can be played by foreign leaders who are going to appeal to his ego and try to play upon his insecurities, which is very, very worrisome from a national security standpoint.” Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper agreed that he “seems very susceptible to rolling out the red carpet and honor guards ... and pomp and circumstance.”
The president himself confirmed as much hours later in Manila, partly in identical language, crowing that his reception “was red carpet like nobody, I think, has probably ever received. And that really is a sign of respect, perhaps for me a little bit, but really for our country. And I’m very proud of that.”
Trump’s inability to distinguish the interests of his ego from those of his country explains his rapport with the Philippines’ bloodstained president, Rodrigo Duterte, with whom he shares a disdain for the press, a loathing of former President Barack Obama, and a penchant for insulting people’s mothers. While the pair bonded over these matters, Trump either failed to mention Duterte’s association with extrajudicial slaughter — condemned by Congress and the United Nations, among others — or brought it up only “briefly,” tangentially and privately, depending on whose dissembling flack one believes.
The Duterte performance echoed Trump’s kowtowing to Xi Jinping after years of fulminating about the Chinese menace. But no strongman can challenge the place in the president’s heart held by Russia’s Vladimir Putin, whose meddling in last year’s election he doubts based on the protestations of — who else? — Vladimir Putin. Having met with the Russian president during a summit in Vietnam, Trump suggested he was inclined to believe the former KGB operative rather than the U.S. intelligence agencies he nominally leads.
For all the criticism of his predecessor’s cautious foreign policy, Trump’s swooning for meaningless displays, failure to stand up for democratic values and faith in our enemies project a vivid image of American weakness.