Donald Trump.
Credit: Reuters Photo
When British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York City for dinner September 26, it was part of a British charm offensive to nurture a relationship between a left-wing leader and a right-wing potential president. So, when Trump turned to Starmer before parting and told him, "We are friends," according to a person involved in the evening, it did not go unnoticed.
Whether they stay friends is anybody's guess.
For months leading up to Trump's political comeback -- and in the heady days since his victory was confirmed -- foreign leaders have rushed, once again, to ingratiate themselves with him. Their emissaries have cultivated people in Trump's orbit or with think tanks expected to be influential in setting policies for a second Trump administration.
Some leaders, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are crafting their pitches to appeal to Trump's transactional nature; others, such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have deployed teams of officials to the United States to visit dozens of Republican leaders in the hope that they can moderate Trump's most radical instincts on imposing tariffs.
History suggests that many of these bridge-building efforts will fail. By the end of his first term, Trump had soured on several leaders with whom he started off on good terms. His protectionist trade policy and aversion to alliances -- coupled with a mercurial personality -- fueled clashes that overrode the rapport that the leaders had labored to cultivate.
"There were two misapprehensions about Trump," Malcolm Turnbull, a former prime minister of Australia, said in an interview. "The first was: He would be different in office than he was on the campaign trail. The second was: The best way to deal with him was to suck up to him."
In January 2017, Turnbull had a notoriously hostile phone call with Trump over whether the United States would honor an Obama-era deal to accept 1,250 refugees, which Trump opposed (the U.S. did end up taking them). Turnbull said he later found other common ground with Trump, even talking him out of imposing tariffs on some Australian exports.
The difference this time, Turnbull said, is that "everybody knows exactly what they're going to get. He's highly transactional. You've got to be able to demonstrate that a particular course of action is in his interest."
Well before the election, leaders began anticipating a Trump victory by seeking him out. Zelenskyy met him in New York the same week as Starmer. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Mar-a-Lago, Trump's estate in Palm Beach, Florida, in July, as did Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
A populist whose autocratic style is a model for some in Trump's MAGA movement, Orban has come, perhaps, the closest to cracking the code with Trump. The two meet and speak regularly by phone; they heap praise on each other in what has become a mutual admiration society.
Orban, Trump has said, is a "very great leader, a very strong man," whom some don't like only "because he's too strong." Orban, for his part, has praised Trump as the only hope for peace in Ukraine and for the defeat of "woke globalists."
How to convince Trump
Convincing Trump that Ukraine's priorities are in his own interest lies at the heart of Zelenskyy's lobbying strategy. Trump's skepticism about military support for Ukraine against Russia is well known: He claims he could end the war in a day, perhaps even before taking office, although he has not said how. Analysts fear he will force Zelenskyy into a peace settlement with Russian President Vladimir Putin that would entrench Russia's territorial gains in Ukraine.
At their meeting in New York, Zelenskyy made the case that defending Ukraine is in the economic interests of the United States. That is because much of the United States' military assistance benefits the country's own defense contractors -- for example, Lockheed Martin, which makes the HIMARS rocket system that has become a vital weapon in the Ukrainian arsenal.
Ukrainian officials have worked with Republican allies in Washington to develop new ways of structuring military aid, including the creation of a $500 billion lend-lease program to help Ukraine defend itself. That is the brainchild of Mike Pompeo, a former secretary of state and CIA director in the first Trump administration who may take a prominent role in the new one.
"In my opinion, we should take a proactive position," said Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the Ukrainian parliament's foreign affairs committee. "It's especially important and timely while Trump is beginning to form his administration and foreign policy team, and while the new Congress is beginning to form."
Merezhko says he has read several books on Trump's first term to help him understand how to navigate a Trump restoration. He also held two meetings -- one in Washington and one in Lithuania -- with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy institute whose ranks are filled with people who served in the Trump administration or on his campaign or transition teams.
Zelenskyy and Trump have baggage: Trump's 2019 phone call to the Ukrainian leader, in which the U.S. leader urged him to investigate Joe Biden, triggered the first impeachment proceeding against him.
On Wednesday, however, Zelenskyy won a coveted place near the top of Trump's list of well-wishers, and he offered the president-elect unstinting praise for what he called a "historic and landslide victory." "It was a very warm conversation," Zelenskyy said. He did not mention that Trump had put Elon Musk, the Silicon Valley billionaire who backed his campaign, on the phone with them.
Casting a wide net
Canada, too, has cast a wide net to influence the incoming administration. Starting last January, Trudeau deployed Cabinet ministers on regular visits to the United States to meet federal and state officials to promote the value of the sprawling U.S.-Canada trade relationship.
Trump has said he wants all imported goods to be subject to a 10% tariff or higher. That would be catastrophic for Canada. Trudeau's envoys were trying to tell anyone who would listen that it would be bad for the United States, too. They fanned out to 23 states, targeting Republican leaders.
Trudeau has had a star-crossed relationship with Trump. Once quite chummy, the two fell out over tariffs, with Trump walking out of a Group of 7 meeting in Canada in 2018 and calling Trudeau "dishonest and weak." But Canada's deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, has maintained good relations with Robert Lighthizer, Trump's top adviser on trade, from their work together negotiating a successor trade agreement to NAFTA.
Freeland said she and Lighthizer had recently discussed how a flood of Chinese imports hollowed out manufacturing in the United States and hurt middle-class workers. "That's an area where Ambassador Lighthizer and I are very strongly in agreement," she told reporters.
Insiders and outsiders
Engaging a new Trump administration is easier for some countries than others. For several months, Israeli officials have given briefings about the war in the Gaza Strip to Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, who worked on Middle East issues during his first term, and David Friedman, who served as Trump's ambassador to Israel, said two Israeli officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive meetings.
Yossi Dagan, an Israeli settler leader who campaigned for Trump, has already been invited to attend his inauguration in Washington, said a spokesperson for Dagan, Esther Allush. Dagan hosted Friedman at an event to promote Friedman's book "One Jewish State" last month.
Netanyahu, like Trudeau, has had his ups and downs with Trump. During his first term, Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the U.S. Embassy there, giving Netanyahu a major victory. But in 2020, Netanyahu angered him by congratulating Biden on his presidential election victory.
After his fence-mending visit to Mar-a-Lago, Netanyahu was among the first leaders to call Trump on Wednesday for what the Israeli government described as a "warm and cordial" conversation.
That was restrained, compared with the wording used by other leaders. Kenya's president, William Ruto, the only African leader hosted by Biden for a state visit, said Trump's win was a tribute to his "visionary, bold and innovative leadership."
Taiwan, whose self-rule is under threat from an increasingly expansionist China, is among the global hot spots most eager to win Trump's ear. In 2016, Trump took a phone call from Tsai Ing-wen, then Taiwan's president, a break with U.S. convention against high-level political contacts with Taiwan after Washington shifted diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979.
That presaged stronger support for Taiwan under Trump. But his mood toward the island has since cooled, and there are no signs so far of a call between him and the current Taiwanese president, Lai Ching-te. Both Lai and Chinese President Xi Jinping sent congratulatory messages to Trump.
In the European Union, anxiety about Trump's return has also led to preemptive brainstorming. In recent weeks, Bjoern Seibert, the top aide to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has held small group sessions with ambassadors to discuss scenarios for the next administration. These have concentrated on Trump and trade, several European officials said.
European diplomats are realistic about the task that confronts them. But they cling to the idea that with the proper approach, Trump can be swayed.
Karen Pierce, Britain's ambassador to the United States, said: "With President Trump, it's the art of the possible. If you can explain what we can do together and how we can improve things in a significant way, then you can make progress."
Pierce's predecessor as ambassador, Kim Darroch, was forced to leave his post after a British newspaper leaked his diplomatic cables critical of Trump. Perhaps understandably, he takes a warier view of the value of outreach to Trump.
"It's essential to do it; it's remiss not to do it," Darroch said. "But I'm skeptical that we will shift him on issues where he's made public commitments, whether tariffs or ending U.S. arms supplies to Ukraine."