Around this time five years ago, Belarus’ Aleksandr Lukashenko named himself the winner of a rigged presidential election, extending a tenure that began in 1994, and held a secret inauguration ceremony. The Trump administration was one of several Western democracies that balked.
Indeed, Trump’s State Department announced in September 2020 that it would not recognize Lukashenko as a legitimate president. An administration spokesperson declared in an official statement, “The United States cannot consider Aleksandr Lukashenko the legitimately elected leader of Belarus. The path forward should be a national dialogue leading to the Belarusian people enjoying their right to choose their leaders in a free and fair election under independent observation.”
A lot can happen in five years, however.
While the Trump’s team in his first term made a rather obvious diplomatic call by rejecting an illegitimate election in a country led one of Vladmir Putin’s regional puppets, things are far different in the American president’s second term. Now, not only has the Trump administration curtailed its criticisms of tainted foreign elections, it’s also decided that Lukashenko is worthy of recognition after all. Bloomberg reported:
US President Donald Trump spoke with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, a Kremlin ally under a range of international sanctions, in a rare direct call ahead of a summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. ‘I had a wonderful talk with the highly respected President of Belarus,’ Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Friday. ‘Our conversation was a very good one. We discussed many topics, including President Putin’s visit to Alaska.’
The Republican added, in reference to the Belarusian leader his administration refused to acknowledge as legitimate five years earlier, “I look forward to meeting President Lukashenko in the future.”
I won’t pretend to know whether Trump intended for this online missive to be significant, but it raised a few eyebrows for a few reasons. First, the Republican has obviously abandoned one of his own diplomatic positions from his first term, replacing a pro-democracy stance with something altogether worse. Second, the American president has embraced a stance that brings the White House into alignment with Moscow — which sure does seem to happen frequently.
I’m also struck by the growing list of dictators whom Trump holds in high regard.
At a recent White House event, the Republican asked Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, how long he’s been in power. Aliyev, who’s been repeatedly accused by international observers of being a dictator, replied, “It’s been 22 years.”
The American president, clearly impressed, said, “Twenty-two years, that’s pretty good.” At that point, Trump turned to attendees and added, “That means he’s tough and smart.” It was a timely reminder: The Republican doesn’t admire dictators despite their despotism, he admires them because of their despotism. Trump’s affection for Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has been overt for quite some time, and his eagerness to align himself with Putin has lacked subtlety for years. The American has also celebrated North Korea’s Kim Jong Un as an “absolute leader” and praised China’s Xi Jinping as a “brilliant man” who controls 1.4 billion people with an “iron fist.” As Election Day 2024 approached, Trump told voters, “It’s nice to have a strongman running the country,” adding, “Sometimes you need a strongman.” With this in mind, his praise for Lukashenko was ridiculous — but hardly out of character.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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