The Worlds Ugliest American
Richard North Patterson - Huffington Post
One year into the Trump administration, as our president prepares for his trip to address the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, here is the dynamic abroad: No foreign enemy could have degraded America’s global standing so completely in so short a time.
In word and deed, Donald Trump personifies the American ignoramus abroad. He insults foreign leaders in tweets, then melts in their presence. He switches positions based on personal flattery. He parades his ignorance of geopolitics. His erratic behavior and bellicose boasts provoke alarm in a nuclear age.
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In his geopolitical illiteracy, Trump ignores that our most reliable strategic partners are stable democracies. Thus he has cut our resources for promoting democracy abroad, and jettisoned human rights as a concern of our foreign policy. With Trump as their enabler, the authoritarians of countries like Turkey, Egypt and the Philippines feel even less constraint in how they treat their own citizens.
If anything, Trump seems to envy their example. He congratulated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for winning a rigged referendum, commended the ruthless totalitarian Chinese leader Xi Jinping on acquiring yet more power, and praised Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte for an anti-drug program rooted in extrajudicial killings. Most remarkable – and suspicious – is his congenital fawning over Russian President Vladimir Putin, who strangles democracy and murders dissidents. This head-spinning moral reversal evokes America at its self-seeking, historic worst.
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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-worlds-ugliest-american_us_5a662792e4b002283005674a?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
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