U.S. Presidents Shouldn’t Embrace Hostile Dictators

Talking with foreign leaders goes with the job of president of the United States. Such interactions with actual or potential adversaries, however, entail real risks if they conjur notions of personal relationships that are allowed to mutate or supersede reality-based national security policies.

The ballyhooed “bromance” between President Trump and China’s Xi Jinping is worrying in that regard. Mr. Trump’s upcoming meetings with Russian despot Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s would-be Caliph, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, may be similarly fraught. And the President is now openly entertaining the possibility of a face-to-face meeting with North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-Un.

Barack Obama was properly criticized for “extending the hand of friendship” to assorted U.S. enemies without precondition. The world is a much more dangerous place because, to varying degrees, he did that. Donald Trump risks making it even more so by repeating Obama’s mistake.