Donald Trump has a soft spot for strongmen. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is “very talented”. (“He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”) China’s Xi Jinping is a “very special person”. Western leaders, however, Trump likes to disparage: Canada’s Justin Trudeau is “dishonest and weak”. But, says Jonathan Freedland, this preference for tyrants over elected leaders doesn’t only reflect Trump’s insecurity and his worship of bullies: it reflects his view of geopolitics, which he regards in purely business terms. Can his opposite numbers deliver? Can they do deals for him and his family? Tyrants make ideal partners for Trump, because they can make instant decisions and carry them out; they’re not hemmed in by rules or having to answer to voters. They can grant 13 trademarks to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, as China did recently, no questions asked. The leaders of democracies and rule-bound political systems like the EU can’t do that, which makes them look weak and ineffectual. But give me democratic weakness over a tyrant’s strength, any day.
