FOREIGN RELATIONS
SIMON BARBER: Trump’s bizarre praise unlikely to bring dictator to heel
How constructive the gatkruip will be remains to be seen
Perhaps you’ve heard of the banqueting king who spots his favourite mastiff chewing a priceless rug and tosses the animal a rib to get it to stop. "Your majesty," his chancellor says, "you have just taught that dog to eat carpets." This week in Singapore, President Donald Trump did his best to teach North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, the same lesson. To persuade Kim to scrap his nuclear weapons, Trump, ever promiscuous in his choice of words, slathered the world’s most brutal dictator with over-the-top accolades for his integrity and statesmanship. Remember Ronald Reagan’s constructive engagement with the PW Botha regime? Well, if you’ll excuse a salty epithet, this was constructive gatkruip. How constructive remains to be seen. Greta van Susteren, formerly of Fox News who now reports for another state broadcaster, Voice of America, asked the president if he had a message for the people of North Korea. He replied, as if on the stump for his counterpart: "Well, I think you have someb...
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