Shortly after President Trump mused Friday over imposing tariffs on Japan while sitting alongside the country’s prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, the Japanese leader was asked by a reporter to reflect on his first meeting with Mr. Trump. It was a prime opportunity to respond to Mr. Trump’s economic threat.
Instead, Mr. Ishiba took a different tack — becoming the latest foreign leader to fawn over, rather than flout, the American president.
“I was so excited to see such a celebrity on television,” Mr. Ishiba said, prompting Mr. Trump to turn to him and smile from ear to ear. “On television he is frightening, and he has a very strong personality, but when I met with him, actually, he was very sincere and very powerful, and with strong will for the United States.”
Mr. Ishiba assured the reporters and White House officials in assembly that his compliments for Mr. Trump were not an attempt to “suck up to him,” but rather part of an effort to ensure “world peace” and “regional stability.”
Mr. Ishiba is the latest foreign emissary to employ the art of flattery with a president known for his transactional, if not unpredictable, approach to foreign policy. Mr. Trump’s predecessor, Joseph R. Biden Jr., often said that foreign leaders would privately express concern to him over the prospect of Mr. Trump’s return to the White House. Now that he’s back, any concerns appear to have been put aside — at least in public.
Days before Mr. Ishiba complimented Mr. Trump’s presence on television, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Mr. Trump “the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House,” adding that he has “enormous respect” among Israelis. He commended Mr. Trump’s ability to “cut to the chase.” President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador made an unusual gesture, proposing that Mr. Trump jail undocumented migrants — and even convicted American citizens — in the Central American nation’s notorious prison complex.
“People seem to think flattery is going to work for what they need, that it will win them points,” said Elizabeth Shackelford, a former diplomat who worked in Poland, South Sudan and Somalia before resigning in protest of Mr. Trump’s first presidency. “Perhaps they think that by being nice to him they’ll be less likely to be the ones that are in his wrath when he lashes out.”
It is not a new strategy. During the first Trump administration, President Emmanuel Macron of France gushed over Mr. Trump at the White House, telling him that he hoped their “friendship” and “kinship” would continue to grow. Poland offered to rename a U.S. military base Fort Trump. Mr. Netanyahu proposed that an Israeli settlement in the Golan Heights be renamed Trump Heights. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada went on a charm offensive, inviting Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka to take part in a meeting of female business leaders.
The flattery did not always work. By 2018, Mr. Trump had imposed tariffs on Canada and called Mr. Trudeau “dishonest & weak” on social media. Mr. Trump and Mr. Macron’s bromance morphed into a public feud over the direction of NATO. Mr. Trump would later erupt at Mr. Netanyahu when he congratulated Mr. Biden on his victory in the 2020 election. He published coffee-table books with criticism of various foreign leaders, including Mr. Trudeau and Angela Merkel, the former German chancellor, who did not shy away from challenging Mr. Trump.
His 2024 book included 10 pages of photographs with Mr. Trump and Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator. Mr. Trump boasted about his “love letters” from the North Korean leader — missives he valued so much that he took them to Mar-a-Lago after office. The National Archives later sought to retrieve them along with other documents Mr. Trump kept, in what ultimately led to a federal inquiry and prosecution.
Ms. Shackelford described the attempt to use flattery as a means to gain favor with Mr. Trump as a “fool’s errand.”
“I don’t think that anybody is going to get what they want from Trump,” Ms. Shackelford said. “He will use them as long as it’s convenient for him. But he doesn’t have any problem cutting people off. You don’t earn points from Trump because he doesn’t give you credit for that later.”
“When it suits him, he’ll just pretend like it never happened,” she added.
That has not stopped leaders from trying. Presidents and prime ministers flocked to Mar-a-Lago even before Mr. Trump made it to office. A delegation from Canada made multiple visits to Washington since Mr. Trump’s election, hoping to convince Mr. Trump that the nation was doing enough on border security in an effort to avoid tariffs. The meetings even left some of Mr. Trump’s aides impressed.
Mr. Trump…
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