When your approval rating hits a record low and your allies are refusing to return your calls, it helps to have friends. Donald Trump still has some. They just are not the kind most presidents would brag about.
Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian leader who has ruled through rigged elections, torture, and political murders for 32 years, held a press conference on Friday. He praised Trump’s honesty, admired his business instincts, defended him against his critics, and announced that Trump had personally invited him to Florida to discuss a “big deal” he was preparing for Belarus.
Lukashenko did not specify what the deal involved. He did not need to. The point of the press conference was the devotion, not the details.
“I always stood up for Trump so that they didn’t press, didn’t bully Trump,” he told reporters, describing himself as one of the few world leaders willing to defend the U.S. president publicly during his darkest moments. He claimed to be the only president who openly condemned the 2024 assassination attempt against Trump, and positioned himself in a kind of unofficial competition with Vladimir Putin over who has been the more loyal supporter. “Yes, Putin rooted for Trump just as much,” Lukashenko said, but not quite so “publicly.”
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He also took the opportunity to endorse Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen, praising White House efforts to tighten voting requirements. “I agree with him that America needs to be saved in terms of elections,” he said, apparently without irony, given that he has not held a free or fair election in three decades of power. His nickname among his own people is “Sasha 3%,” a reference to his actual level of public support before the results are adjusted.
Lukashenko did draw one line. He called Trump’s war against Iran a “mistake” and claimed he had submitted his own proposal to the White House on how to end the conflict, though he declined to share what it contained. A dictator offering unsolicited peace plans to a president who does not take advice from his own generals is a detail that writes itself.
The praise from Minsk lands at a particular moment. Trump is three weeks into an unpopular war, polling at his lowest approval rating ever, watching his base fracture publicly, and being turned down by democratic allies across Europe and Asia. The leaders rushing to fill that vacuum are not France or Japan. They are Lukashenko and Putin, two of the most isolated figures in global politics, whose enthusiasm for Trump says something about the company his presidency is now keeping.
Featured image via YouTube screengrab
