Where Countries Stand With Donald Trump: A Cheat Sheet
Donald Trump has vowed to put “America first,” but who comes second, and third, and 193rd? Barack Obama may have been more willing than his predecessors to “question why America’s enemies are its enemies, or why some of its friends are its friends,” as Jeffrey Goldberg once wrote in The Atlantic, but Trump has thrown U.S. allies and adversaries into a state of flux unseen in decades. We now live in a world where European Union officials talk of the grave threat posed by the American president, who in turn doggedly defends the leader of Russia. It’s a world in which well-established diplomatic relationships can fray at the speed of a tweet.
Below is a rough ranking of where key countries seem to stand with The Donald at the moment. I repeat: at the moment.
FRIEND
Israel is a longtime U.S.relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Now Trump is aiming to restore close relations with the current Israeli government, Netanyahu’s dark view of Iran and whether to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem over the objections of Palestinians. Trump also Obama for publicly opposing Israeli settlements in land that could be used for a future Palestinian state. The new U.S. administration Israel for settlement construction since Trump assumed the presidency, but it has also “not taken an official position on settlement activity”— with past American administrations.
