Trump’s fascination with autocrats

President Donald Trump’s penchant for pummeling allies while pampering adversaries was perversely apparent in the last few days.

In the run up to the G-7 summit in Quebec with Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan he began a bizarre trade war with most of them (a war that will hurt U.S. workers and companies). He waged ugly phone and Twitter spats with French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

But when it came to America’s adversaries, Trump was in full suck-up mode. Before leaving for Quebec, he proposed that Russia should be part of the G-7 meeting. (Never mind that Vladimir Putin was ejected from the group in 2014 after Russia invaded Ukraine.) Trump also gave Beijing a huge gift – dropping sanctions against a Chinese telecom company that had threatened U.S. security. And the president suggested he might invite North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to the White House.