Why bending over backwards to agree with Donald Trump is a perilous strategy

By Andrew Gawthorpe, Lecturer in History and International Studies, Leiden University

Donald Trump is a difficult figure to deal with, both for foreign leaders and figures closer to home who find themselves in his crosshairs. The US president is unpredictable, sensitive and willing to break the rules to get his way.

But in Trump’s second term, a variety of different leaders and institutions seem to have settled on a way to handle him. The key, they seem to think, is flattery. The most obvious example came at the recently concluded Nato summit…

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