Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 11 July 2026
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective
America’s Longest-Running Column, Founded 1932
The Sucker in the Game of Thrones
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
                                        
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has alienated our friends and befriended our adversaries. Why? He views democracies as weak, our own Constitution as an impediment to strong-man government, and he never met a dictator he didn’t like.
Meanwhile, the view of foreign allies is epitomized in the assessment by MI6 (British Intelligence) that the Trump administration resembles a combination of the Salem Witch Trials and the mercurial Court of Henry VIII, which is apparently fine with him because his standing with dictators is seemingly through the roof. However, this is self-delusionary, for as Warren Buffett once quipped, “If you can’t spot the sucker in your first half hour at the [game or business] table, then you are the sucker.” Our own “Dear Leader” is being played.
The NATO summit in Turkey is the most recent example. He made a show of attending because it was hosted by his friend and strong-man ally, Turkish President Erdogan. The two leaders were shown together laughing and sharing confidences in a country where the opposition leader is in jail.
The former leader of Hungary, another NATO country, Viktor Orban, is another Trump favorite. When he fell behind in his bid for reelection earlier this year, Trump dispatched Vice President Vance to campaign with him, a highly unusual attempt to interfere in a foreign election. The ploy did not work, and Orban lost in a landslide and conceded.
Then there’s Kim Jong Un, the self-proclaimed “Dear Leader” of North Korea, with whom Trump exchanged what he called “love letters” during his first term. Trump raved about how smart and clever the unelected leader is and has done nothing in either of his two terms as president to restrain North Korea from expanding its nuclear capabilities.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping ranks highest in Trump’s eyes as a president for life who looks the part. “He’s out of central casting” is the highest praise Trump can confer on anybody. Xi has gotten the better of Trump by pushing back against his punitive tariffs and leveraging China’s advantage with rare earth minerals. And he is turning the South China Sea into a Chinese lake that controls critical sea lanes and increasingly lessens the force projection advantage long enjoyed by the U.S. 7th Fleet, all of which increases China’s hegemony and undermines Taiwan’s independence.
And of course there is Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The Putin-Trump relationship goes back to the 2008 Great Recession that crashed real estate values. Trump’s son, Eric, announced his father’s real estate empire was safe because “we have all the funding we need out of Russia.” Their special relationship has shifted global alliances as Trump strives to meet Putin’s ambitions: dismantling NATO and expanding Russian territory through its invasion of Ukraine.
Clearly, our dictator wannabe is the sucker in this game of thrones.
 
See Eleanor Clift’s book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
© 2026 U.S. News Syndicate, Inc
Distributed by U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND