DONALD TRUMP SAYS HIS FOREIGN POLICY puts America first. But as he meddles in other countries, pressuring their courts to go easy on authoritarian felons and defendants, a very different pattern is emerging: Trump is fundamentally a criminal, and his foreign policy is about aiding his fellow criminals.
Trump has long defended Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president who faces trial in that country for doing what Trump did in the United States: attempting a coup to stay in power after losing an election. On Wednesday, Trump went further. In a letter to Brazil’s current president—the target of Bolsonaro’s coup attempt—Trump announced a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian products, based on what Trump described as unfair treatment of Bolsonaro by Brazil’s judicial system. “This Trial should not be taking place,” Trump demanded. “It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!”
This wasn’t a tariff on behalf of American companies or workers. It was on behalf of a foreign defendant with whom Trump personally identified. On Truth Social, Trump condemned Bolsonaro’s prosecution as “an attack on a Political Opponent — Something I know much about! It happened to me, times 10.”
The letter to Brazil—essentially dragging the United States into a trade war to subvert the rule of law—is the latest in a long string of moves by the American president to aid Trump-like politicians facing criminal charges or convictions in other countries.
Three months ago, a French court convicted Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s right wing, of embezzlement. As part of her sentence, the court prohibited her from running for office for five years. Trump, himself a convicted felon, sympathized with Le Pen and denounced the verdict. “The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent,” he raged. “It is the same ‘playbook’ that was used against me.”
Trump cited details of Le Pen’s case that echoed his 2024 conviction for covering up hush-money payments. He even used the same weaselly phrase—“bookkeeping error”—that he had invoked in his own case. “Just before what would be a Big Victory, they get her on a minor charge that she probably knew nothing about,” Trump wrote. “Sounds like a ‘bookkeeping’ error to me. . . . FREE MARINE LE PEN!
Then, three weeks ago, Trump rushed to the aid of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was on trial for multiple counts of fraud, bribery, and other alleged financial crimes. Trump condemned Israel’s “out-of-control prosecutors” and called the trial “a POLITICAL WITCH HUNT, very similar to the Witch Hunt that I was forced to endure.” The trial “should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY,” he said. “It is going to be the United States of America that saves Bibi Netanyahu.”
As in the case of Brazil, Trump wielded America’s financial power not to serve America’s interests but to extract his friend from legal jeopardy. “The United States of America spends Billions of Dollar[s] a year, far more than on any other Nation, protecting and supporting Israel,” he warned the Jewish state. “We are not going to stand for this.”
TRUMP DOESN’T JUST work to protect autocrats from justice in their own countries. He also defends them against justice in the United States.
In 2018, a CIA assessment, backed by incriminating evidence, concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist and U.S. resident. But when American lawmakers tried to sanction MBS, Trump thwarted them. “I saved his ass,” Trump later told Bob Woodward. “I was able to get Congress to leave him alone.”
Two months ago, Trump went to Riyadh to fawn over the crown prince. “I like him a lot. I like him too much. That’s why we give so much,” Trump effused in a speech. The two men beamed at one another like lovers. “Too much,” Trump went on, gazing at his partner. “I like you too much.”
Trump has also defended Vladimir Putin, shifting blame from the Russian dictator to America. In 2015 and 2017, interviewers told Trump that Putin was responsible for the shootings and poisonings of journalists and dissidents. Trump shrugged off the crimes. “Our country does plenty of killing also,” he told Joe Scarborough. To Bill O’Reilly, Trump retorted: “What, you think our country’s so innocent? Do you think our country’s so innocent?”
Trump’s quest to exonerate Putin is especially personal. He sees Putin as his co-defendant in the American investigation of Russia’s 2016 election interference. “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia,” Trump raged in an Oval Office tirade in February. “It was a Democrat scam. And he had to go through that,” Trump shouted. He depicted Putin as a victim of American injustice: “He was accused of all that stuff. He had nothing to do with it. . . . The whole thing was a scam, and he had to put up with that.”
Soon after that outburst, Trump conspired with another authoritarian to defy American law. On March 15, Trump’s administration deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia—an illegal immigrant who had become a husband to an American woman and the father of her child in the fourteen years since his arrival—to a prison in El Salvador. On April 4, a U.S. federal judge instructed the administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States, since a prior court order of protection should have barred his removal. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld that ruling. Instead, Trump collaborated with El Salvador’s strongman president, Nayib Bukele—whose government Trump was paying to imprison deportees—to circumvent the American courts.
On April 14, Trump and Bukele sat together in the Oval Office, smiling and toying with reporters who asked what was being done to return the prisoner. Trump deferred questions to his aides, who said only Bukele could answer them, since Abrego Garcia was in Salvadoran custody. Bukele, in turn, feigned helplessness: “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.” Trump nodded and smirked. It took another two months to extract compliance with the courts.
AROUND THE WORLD, Trump has embraced other thugs and demagogues who faced scrutiny from courts, international institutions, and previous American administrations. He has defended Hungarian boss Viktor Orbán against ostracism and anti-corruption penalties from the European Union. He has praised Geert Wilders, the Islam-bashing Dutch politician who cried “witch hunt” when the Dutch Supreme Court upheld his criminal conviction for provoking a chant against Moroccan immigrants. And several years ago, after Filipino strongman Rodrigo Duterte cursed President Barack Obama for pressing him to respect human rights, Trump disowned Obama’s objections and sided with Duterte.
Trump’s soft spot for authoritarian criminals and defendants is now so well known that some of their supporters have circulated posts on social media claiming—falsely—that he’s coming to the rescue.
In March, Duterte was arrested and sent to the Hague, charged with crimes against humanity for his alleged role in death-squad killings. Two days later, a Facebook post stated that Trump had issued an executive order demanding Duterte’s release and declaring that the International Criminal Court had “no right to meddle in the affairs of strong leaders doing their jobs.” The order was fictional. But it sounded like Trump.
Then, last Thursday, former South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol—who, like Trump, had falsely claimed election fraud and had been impeached for attempting an insurrection—was arrested in the course of the resulting criminal investigation. Someone—apparently one of Yoon’s followers—responded by posting a video clip of Trump saying, “This is a persecution of a political opponent.” The clip was real, but the context had been deceptively changed from Trump’s prosecution to Yoon’s.
There’s a reason why miscreants post such phony stories and why some people believe them: The stories echo Trump’s actual behavior. Sometimes they use his exact words. And in at least one case, they’ve accurately predicted his next move.
On March 12, after Duterte’s arrest, somebody posted a Facebook message with a fake quote from Trump. The quote depicted Trump as saying “if the Philippines doesn’t bring back Duterte, we’re going to impose 50% tariffs.”
Trump never said that. But on Wednesday, in his letter to Brazil, he announced that based on “the way that Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro . . . we will charge Brazil a Tariff of 50%.”
In the age of Trump, the difference between parody and real life is just a few months.
Great Job Will Saletan & the Team @ The Bulwark Source link for sharing this story.
