Trump is delighting dictators everywhere
By Michael Gerson Opinion writer August 21 at 7:43 PM
We are seeing the sad effects of President Trump’s renunciation of moral leadership on American politics and culture — the waning of civility, idealism and respect, and the waxing of contempt, prejudice and racial division. But how is a similar moral abdication — summarized as the doctrine of “America first” — influencing America’s place in the world? And does that really matter?
I posed these questions to David Coltart, a politician, human rights activist and former education minister in Zimbabwe. “If the reaction of the regime in Harare is anything to go by,” he responded, “I think many African dictators are delighted by President Trump’s accession to power because they perceive that he will not seek to hold them to an international human rights standard.”
In Zimbabwe, notes Coltart, regime ministers and propaganda officials have begun using the term “fake news” in their repression of the media. Trump’s cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin has given cover to President Robert Mugabe as he pursues closer ties to Russia. It amounts, Coltart says “to comfort that Trump will go lightly on Putin’s allies.” The Trump administration’s proposed cuts at the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development have also sent a signal. “The U.S. has historically assisted human rights organizations which have worked to promote democracy and respect for constitutionalism,” says Coltart. “It now appears as if there will be dramatic cutbacks in the funding of these particular grants, which in turn will severely affect the ability of these [nongovernmental organizations] to operate — to the great delight of dictators and the consternation of civic groups and democrats.”
So this, very concretely, is what Trump’s renunciation of foreign policy idealism means: delighted dictators, bolder attacks on a free press, expanded Russian influence, and betrayed dissidents and exiles.
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