Donald Trump’s presidential victory means some US allies may have to reckon with previous scathing comments as their countries prepare to build diplomatic ties with a newly elected president whose return they may not have expected.
“The most destructive president in history,” Australian Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd said of Trump in 2020, who is “dragging America and democracy through the mud.”
“A misogynistic, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath” and a “profound threat to the international order,” David Lammy, Britain’s current foreign secretary, said in 2018.
“A political pyromaniac who must be brought to justice,” Jean Asselborn, then Luxembourg’s foreign minister, said of Trump after the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
“Trump has ruined it all,” said Croatian President Zoran Milanović, also in 2021.[s] hate, he’s a rabble-rouser and that’s all.”
Following Trump’s election victory, at least two of these US allies, Britain and Australia, have had to reverse some of their earlier attacks.
Rudd deleted his posts after Trump’s victory, “out of respect for the office of President of the United States,” according to an Australian government statement, and to “eliminate the possibility that such comments would be misinterpreted as reflecting of his positions as ambassador and, by extension, the positions of the Australian government.”
For his part, Trump responded to Rudd’s comments by calling him “nasty” and saying Rudd “won’t be around long” as Australian ambassador to the United States.
Lammy went from scathing critic to polite well-wisher, showing that diplomacy sometimes means shaking hands with those you once pointed the finger at.
Lammy, who made comments in Time magazine in 2018 about Trump as “a misogynist, neo-Nazi sympathizing sociopath” when he was a minister of parliament, had also protested the then government’s “capitulation to this tyrant in a toupee.”
On Wednesday, as Trump claimed his decisive election victory, Lammy’s tone as foreign secretary had changed significantly as he sent out his congratulations and underlined Britain’s cherished special friendship with the US.
Congratulations @realDonaldTrump on your victory.
Britain has no greater friend than the US, with a special relationship cherished on both sides of the Atlantic for more than 80 years.
We look forward to working with you and @JDVance in the coming years.
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) November 6, 2024
Relations between Britain’s center-left Labor Party and Trump were hostile in the run-up to the election, with Trump accusing the British of election interference.
In October, Trump’s team asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate after a senior Labor figure posted a call for current and former staffers to travel to battleground states and campaign for Harris.
In the first phone call between the pair after the US election, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer offered his “warmest congratulations” to Trump after his “historic victory,” a spokeswoman for the prime minister’s office said in a statement on Wednesday.
Charles Parton, who served as a British diplomat for nearly four decades, said “the Labor Party has some ground to make amends” after the perception that Starmer’s party had favored the Democrats.
In addition to Lammy’s comments, Parton believes Starmer’s “somewhat effusive statement” is an attempt to “try to make up lost ground.”
Nigel Farage, the leader of the far-right Reform UK party, offered to help bridge Labour’s fractious relations with Trump, whom he considers a personal friend with whom he is ideologically linked. An offer that the Labor Party declined.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted on
“I commend his family and team for their great work,” Zelenskyy wrote, adding: “We agreed to maintain a close dialogue and further our cooperation.”
Regarding the tone of the statement, Parton said: “Normally I wouldn’t expect people to refer to the family in congratulatory messages like this, but Trump has made such a big thing about his family.”
“If you look at Trump’s character, it seems like he probably likes this kind of approach,” Parton said.
“There’s no harm in trying to flatter him or get into his good books by pushing the right buttons. So that’s what they did,” he said. “Unusual? Yes. Sensitive? Probably.”
Among those first to congratulate Trump was Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
During the call, the crown prince expressed “the Kingdom’s commitment to strengthening the historical and strategic relations between the two countries,” according to Saudi state news agency SPA.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had a “warm and cordial” conversation with Trump, and boasted that it was one of Trump’s first calls. Netanyahu also posted on X, calling Trump’s “huge victory” “the greatest comeback in history.”
Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s far-right prime minister who, unlike other European leaders, publicly supported Trump’s re-election bid, wrote on X that the result was a “much-needed victory for the world.”
Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General, wrote on X that he looked forward to “working with him again to promote peace through strength through #NATO.”
Despite the controversies, most world leaders continued to congratulate Trump on his presidential victory, as many did on Wednesday before he was even officially declared the winner.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
