President Donald Trump had tough words for both China and Saudi Arabia during the 2016 presidential election campaign -- but since coming into office, he's seemingly gotten along with them better than he's gotten along with traditional American allies such as the United Kingdom and Germany.
According to a New York Times report on the first year of Trump's foreign policy record, the reason for that is simple: China and Saudi Arabia use shameless flattery of the president to curry his favor.
"Mr. Xi of China and King Salman of Saudi Arabia both won over Mr. Trump by giving him a lavish welcome when he visited," the Times writes. "The Saudi monarch projected his image on the side of a hotel; Mr. Xi reopened a long-dormant theater inside the Forbidden City to present Mr. Trump and his wife, Melania, an evening of Chinese opera."
Robert Zoellick, who served as deputy secretary of state and official U.S. Trade representative under the Bush administration, tells the Times that many authoritarian regimes have quickly figured out that getting Trump to do their bidding is shockingly easy as long as they have no shame about fluffing his ego.
"The Chinese are playing him, and it’s not just the Chinese," he says. "The world sees his narcissism and strokes his ego, diverting him from applying disciplined pressure."
