About two weeks ago, President Trump while at the Rose Garden made a declaration that foreign leaders would never laugh at the U.S. again under his leadership. This declaration has since turned him into the butt of all jokes in most capitals around the globe. Here are a few instances that show how leaders are mocking him.
In Mexico for instance, the former president, Vicente Fox, uploaded an irreverent video on the You Tube site. It was in mockery of Trump’s border walls claiming that Mexico won’t pay for them and the president’s savor for taco bowls claiming that they are not Mexican. The video has recorded about half a million views. The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, uncovered a website named “Make Our Planet Great Again” and went on to invite U.S. scientists to shift there. This was just a week after the U.S. announced its withdrawal from the Paris climate pact.
In Australia, Malcolm Turnbull, the prime minister who had sparred Trump with a testy phone call earlier in the year, impersonated Trump during a black-tie gala. He did a masquerade of “The Donald” while making reference to the investigations concerning Russia and using some famous catchphrases employed by Trump. The prime minister stated that he and The Donald were winning especially in the polls, and not the fake ones. He indicated they were winning in the online polls, which prompted a hearty laughter from the politicians present.
For President Trump, this global trolling is just but a mild rebuke for somebody who had lambasted the former president Obama for being feckless on the international stage. Trump had gone as far as adopting a tough-guy persona of putting “America first”. Apart from the leaders being cowed by the vow made by Trump to achieve peace via strength, they are spurred on to poke fun at him as a way of bolstering their political standing. Mocking Trump is the same strategy that Democrats, a few Republicans and celebrities employ to boost their popularity.
According to Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, an international risk-assessment firm, a number of foreign relations ministers and head of states believe that Trump was the least capable person to become president. This was based on some private conversations he had held with the leaders and ministers who felt that Turnbull was just pointing out that fact. He added that even a country willing to foster a great relationship with U.S. will find it hard to get it done due to its ego.
As Trump was campaigning for presidency, he ruffled a few feathers with his norm-busting rhetoric. This is a fact that most world leaders have been grappling with ever since Trump ascended to power. He questioned some long-standing alliances that the U.S. had in Asia and Europe, attacked Japan, Mexico and China especially on trade. He also heaped praises on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Although leaders refrain from making comments during campaigns, some of them had to respond. The president of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto rejected Trump’s suggestion that his country would pay for the proposed border wall. Matteo Renzi, the then-Italian Prime Minister also stated that the future of the world was all about building bridges and not walls, when he met with Obama. Other leaders opted to keep mum in order to start on the right footing with Trump.
A number of leaders have openly poked fun at President Trump. He is bashed by a number of capitals in the word due to his style and approach to the presidency. Things are bad as even Vladimir Putin offered asylum to James B. Comey, the former FBI director who was fired by Trump.