Trump Has Allies Abroad-- Mostly From Enemies Of Democracy

 

Trump isn't generally admired around the world. In fact, he appears to be the most unliked American president in any of our lifetimes-- both by ordinary citizens and by most democratic governments. Just 6% of Danes, for example, want him to win reelection. With a still active fascist movement, Italians are the only people in Western Europe who back Trump with any strength at all-- and it's just 20%. Fascist governments in Hungary, Russia, Israel and Brazil, on the other hand, all think Trump is swell. In fact, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel covered an Eric Trump COVID-spreading event in a Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin bowling alley basement this week. Eric announced that the first person who "came out to wish" the president well was "Little Rocket Man," a reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Little Rocket Man, who inherited his job from his father who had inherited it from his father, is, in effect, the king of one of Asia's poorest countries. But that doesn't mean he is. Kim was born into great wealth and it is estimated that he's much richer than Trump, with a personal fortune of at least $5 billion. The best paid workers in North Korea earn around $62 a month.

On the other hand, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh is not a billionaire. He worked as a professor and then dean of Birzeit Universit, a non-profit school near Ramallah in the West Bank. It should come as a surprise to no one that the rabidly anti-Palestinian Trump doesn't many fans on the West Bank or Gaza. The Associated Press quoted him as saying "If we are going to live another four years with President Trump, God help us, God help you and God help the whole world."

The Palestinians have traditionally refrained from taking an explicit public position in American presidential elections. Shtayyeh’s comments reflected the sense of desperation on the Palestinian side after a series of U.S. moves that have left them weakened and isolated.

The Palestinians severed ties with Trump after he recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in late 2017 and subsequently moved the American Embassy to the holy city. Trump has also cut off hundreds of millions of dollars of American aid to the Palestinians, shut the Palestinian diplomatic offices in Washington and issued a Mideast plan this year that largely favored Israel. The Palestinians have rejected the plan out of hand.

The Trump administration also has persuaded two Arab countries, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel and promised that other Arab nations will follow suit. These deals have undercut the traditional Arab consensus that recognition of Israel only come in return for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal-- a rare source of leverage for the Palestinians.

Shtayyeh expressed hope that a victory by the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden would raise prospects for a peace deal.

“If things are going to change in the United States I think this will reflect itself directly on the Palestinian-Israeli relationship,” he said. “And it will reflect itself also on the bilateral Palestinian-American relationship.”

The Taliban, on the other hand, is enthusiastically backing Trump's reelection. CBS News reported that in a phone interview Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid basically parroted dishonest and misleading Trump campaign talking points: "We believe that Trump is going to win the upcoming election because he has proved himself a politician who accomplished all the major promises he had made to American people, although he might have missed some small things, but did accomplish the bigger promises, so it is possible that the U.S. people who experienced deceptions in the past will once again trust Trump for his decisive actions. We think the majority of the American population is tired of instability, economic failures and politicians' lies and will trust again on Trump because Trump is decisive, could control the situation inside the country. Other politicians, including Biden, chant unrealistic slogans. Some other groups, which are smaller in size but are involved in the military business including weapons manufacturing companies' owners and others who somehow get the benefit of war extension, they might be against Trump and support Biden, but their numbers among voters is low."