WORLD LEADERS ARE “RATTLED BY A POSSIBLE TRUMP PRESIDENCY”

…Obama talking in Hiroshima, Japan, about a possible Trump presidency

 

British Prime Minister, David Cameron on Donald Trump: “…if he came to visit our country, he’d unite us all against him.”

 

The one area that hasn’t been discussed much regarding the 2016 election is “What do the leaders of other key countries think about the possibility of an American President Trump?”

 

Now, we’ve heard the comments on Trump from the British Prime Minister, David Cameron.  Cameron has criticized Trump for his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States.  “I think his remarks are divisive, stupid and wrong,” Cameron said, though he did oppose the petition that was started to have Trump banned from Britain. “I think if he came to visit our country he’d unite us all against him.”

 

But here are a few of the other world leader’s feelings about a possible Trump presidency:

 

Alwaleed bin Talal Alsaud is a member of the Saudi Royal family.  He had previously Tweeted his disapproval of Donald Trump.  However, in response, Trump went on Twitter and posted a clearly photo-shopped picture of the Saudi mogul alongside Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly. (The Saudi is an investor in the parent company of Fox News.)

 

Bin Talal then responded with a tweet of his own, which noted that he had come to Trump’s financial rescue in the 1990s, not once, but twice. The first time was in 1991, when he bought a yacht Trump had put up for sale, and the second was in 1995, when he bought a stake in Trump’s Plaza Hotel.  “Trump: You base your statements on photo-shopped pics?,” the tweet read. “I bailed you out twice; a 3rd time, maybe?”

 

When asked for a response, Trump reportedly denied having been bailed out by Bin Tal. Then he added, “Never liked him. Never met him.”

 

Now, Mexico has been the subject of harsh criticism by candidate Trump. In fact, Trump’s campaign started when he laid out his criticisms in his speech in which he first announced his candidacy.

 

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” he said. “They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”   He then proposed not only building a wall between the two nations, but making Mexico pay for it.

 

The former Mexican president Felipe Calderón, not surprisingly, has said the country wouldn’t “pay a single cent for such a stupid wall.” He also called Trump a “not very well informed man…If this guy pretends that closing the borders to anywhere either for trade [or] for people is going to provide prosperity to the United State, he is completely crazy.”

 

Trump was totally unfazed. In an interview, he said after he heard these comments: “Now the wall just got taller.”

 

After Trump had made his call for a ban on Muslim immigration, Turkish President R. T. Erdoğan said it would be difficult for a President Trump to have successful relations with other countries were he to continue talking this way.  “A successful politician would not make such statement, as there are millions of Muslims living in the U.S,” Erdoğan said. “I don’t know whether or not he’ll win, but let’s suppose he won. What will happen? Will he set aside all relationships with Muslim countries? A politician shouldn’t talk like this.”

 

But the criticism doesn’t stop there.  Since being elected in 2013, Pope Francis has been hailed for his leadership and commitment to reforming the Catholic Church bureaucracy. However, while aboard the papal airliner, Francis was asked about candidate Trump’s rhetoric regarding Mexican immigrants, and His Eminence was only too happy to give his opinion.  “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis said.  

 

Of course, Trump responded the very same day.  “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful,” he said, then he warned that ISIS was eager to attack the Vatican. “If and when the Vatican is attacked, the Pope would only wish and have prayed that Donald Trump would have been elected president,” the candidate said.

 

Later, and after the mass terrorist shooting in San Bernadino, Trump took to MSNBC, where he said, “We have places in London and other places that are so radicalized that police are afraid for their own lives.”  

 

The new Muslim London Mayor, Boris Johnson begged to differ.  “Donald Trump’s ill-informed comments are complete and utter nonsense,” he said. “Crime has been falling steadily in both London and New York — and the only reason I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.”

 

Also after that attack in San Bernardino, Trump called for a temporary, but “total and complete shutdown of Muslim immigration into the United States”.  

 

Many world leaders then weighed in on Trump’s statement including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who denounced Trump’s call for a temporary ban.  “Prime Minister Netanyahu rejects Donald Trump’s recent remarks about Muslims,” his office said in a statement. “The state of Israel respects all religion and strictly adheres to the rights of all its citizens.”

 

While visiting Hiroshima, one of the two sites of the WWII atomic bombs in Japan, President Obama said that many world leaders have been surprised by Donald Trump's emergence as the Republican presidential nominee.  He also added that these world leaders remain uncertain "how seriously to take some of [Trump’s] pronouncements."

 

Obama had said his counterparts across the world are "rattled by Trump — and for good reasons — because a lot of the proposals he makes display an ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude or an interest in getting tweets and headlines instead of actually thinking through what is required to keep America safe and secure and prosperous."

 

The president also questioned Trump's readiness for office during a commencement address at Rutgers University, although he did not mention Trump by name.

 

The real point that the president is trying to convey is that a Trump presidency would seriously alienate some of the United States most important allies.  Trump does not seem to appear that he would be willing to changes his attitude toward some important friends of the US, and President Obama is very aware of how important those relationships are today.

 

There is no longer an opportunity for a nation like the United States to be an isolationist nation, such as is apparently where Donald Trump’s idea for America is today.  The world is a globalized world and we are all dependent on each other for trade, travel, and for our nation’s security and defense.

 

Having a Trump in the White House would be attempting to turn back the clock, which is not a possibility in today’s global world. 

 

The United States needs more world friends, not fewer..

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016