The Cable
The Cable goes inside the foreign policy machine, from Foggy Bottom to Turtle Bay, the White House to Embassy Row.

Here’s How World Leaders Have Slammed Clinton and Trump

Loose-lipped world leaders may have some explaining to do to the next U.S. president, whoever it may be.

By , a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy.
trump-crop
trump-crop

Whoever wins Tuesday’s election will have to face a fair amount of trash talk tossed out against them during the campaign by some of the world’s most powerful leaders.

Whoever wins Tuesday’s election will have to face a fair amount of trash talk tossed out against them during the campaign by some of the world’s most powerful leaders.

It was somewhat expected that many heads of state would be wary — to say the least — of a Donald Trump White House, what with the Republican nominee’s more bombastic proclamations. But some leaders had frosty words for Democrat Hillary Clinton, too, perhaps unwilling to swallow whatever bitter taste her tenure as secretary of state left behind.

No doubt leaders and top diplomats now would rather forget their harsh words, considering they’ll have to work with Tuesday’s winner for the next four years. So we’ve helpfully compiled some of the slams here, just for posterity’s sake.

That’s the way Mussolini arrived and the way Hitler arrived,” Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said of Trump’s rhetoric in March.

“I consider Donald Trump a man who invests a lot in a policy of fear,” Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said in April.

“The mouth is Clinton’s but the voice is of George Soros,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in May, referring to the Hungarian-born billionaire and Democratic Party funder.

Trump “changes opinions like the rest of us change underwear,” Danish Foreign Minister Kristian Jensen said in March.

Clinton “gave [Russian demonstrators] a signal” to take to the streets in 2011 to protest election fraud, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that year.

Trump’s “more closed, isolationist, and xenophobic” policies will derail U.S.-Latin American relations, Argentina’s foreign minister, Susana Malcorra, said Monday.

“Trump, like others, stokes hatred and conflations,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls tweeted in December 2015.

But here’s some love for Clinton from an unlikely source: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Clinton, he said in an interview with Al Jazeera, “would make a good president.” He also had kind words for Trump as a “good candidate.” Such diplomacy from the man who had much spicier words for Pope Francis.

Photo credit: YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images

Robbie Gramer is a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @RobbieGramer

More from Foreign Policy

Residents evacuated from Shebekino and other Russian towns near the border with Ukraine are seen in a temporary shelter in Belgorod, Russia, on June 2.
Residents evacuated from Shebekino and other Russian towns near the border with Ukraine are seen in a temporary shelter in Belgorod, Russia, on June 2.

Russians Are Unraveling Before Our Eyes

A wave of fresh humiliations has the Kremlin struggling to control the narrative.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva shake hands in Beijing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva shake hands in Beijing.

A BRICS Currency Could Shake the Dollar’s Dominance

De-dollarization’s moment might finally be here.

Keri Russell as Kate Wyler in an episode of The Diplomat
Keri Russell as Kate Wyler in an episode of The Diplomat

Is Netflix’s ‘The Diplomat’ Factual or Farcical?

A former U.S. ambassador, an Iran expert, a Libya expert, and a former U.K. Conservative Party advisor weigh in.

An illustration shows the faces of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin interrupted by wavy lines of a fragmented map of Europe and Asia.
An illustration shows the faces of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin interrupted by wavy lines of a fragmented map of Europe and Asia.

The Battle for Eurasia

China, Russia, and their autocratic friends are leading another epic clash over the world’s largest landmass.