Foreign leaders who embraced President Donald Trump and rolled out the red carpet for him are collectively feeling burned that their attempts to woo the leader of the free world have gotten them nowhere, Politico reports.
Despite the backslaps and bro-hugs, parades and state dinners, Japan's Shinzo Abe, France's Emmanuel Macron and Canada's Justin Trudeau are finding out the hard way that flattery is a one-way street with Trump, according to Politico.
Instead, Trump has issued a dose of tariffs to Canada, pulled out of the Iran nuke deal, against Macron's pleas, and is moving forward with negotiations with North Korea despite the grave concerns of Abe.
"Trump is very selfish and I think he views flattery as a one-way street where he gets flattered and then there's no real reciprocal benefit going back the other direction," one former White House official told Politico.
"If you're a foreign leader you have to realize if you try to butter up Trump it doesn't really matter, it's a one way street."
Chinese President Xi Jinping and British Prime Minister Theresa May have also been spurned by the president despite chummy beginnings. Trump is now in a full trade offensive with China and he has infuriated May more than once on issues of immigration and terrorism in the U.K.
But the bromance between Trump and Macron is the most telling in how soon it flipped.
"Macron was definitely getting more phone calls than other European leaders, so it looked at first like it was paying off," Julianne Smith, a former deputy national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, told Politico.
"But then it became clear fairly quickly that Macron would not be able to persuade Trump."
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