… Let’s recall what Trump said about President Barack Obama and his foreign policy back in October 2016:
Donald Trump has claimed that Barack Obama and the US are loathed around the world, driving countries such as the Philippines into the arms of its adversaries.
“The world hates our president,” Trump said Friday at a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. “The world hates us. You saw what happened with the Philippines after years and years and years; they’re now looking to Russia and China, because they don’t feel good about the weak America.”
Trump’s claim that the world hated Obama was a flat-out lie, but let’s put that to one side. The excerpt shows that Trump thinks it is a bad thing if the rest of the world hates the American president. He does not want countries looking to Russia or China.
The problem is that all the data suggest that America is far closer to Trump’s description now than when Obama was president. CONT.
Daniel W. Drezner (Fletcher School), Washington Post