Foreign leaders traveling to the United States to attend the U.N. General Assembly this week in New York have also been meeting with former president Donald Trump, as they hedge their bets in case of a Trump victory in the November election.<\/p>\n
Trump is scheduled to meet this week with the president of the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, according to people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private details. On Sunday, Trump wrote on social media that he had met with the emir and prime minister of Qatar at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida.<\/p>\n
The emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, \u201cis someone also who strongly wants peace in the Middle East, and all over the world,\u201d Trump wrote. \u201cWe had a great relationship during my years in the White House, and it will be even stronger this time around!\u201d The Qataris have played a crucial mediating role in cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas.<\/p>\n
The Qatari and Emirati embassies did not respond to requests for comment. Representatives for Starmer also did not respond.<\/p>\n
The meetings reflect an acknowledgment by a wide range of foreign governments, from Europe to the Persian Gulf, that Trump may soon return to the White House and take over management of multiple global conflagrations, including Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, the civil war in Sudan, and Israel\u2019s war in Gaza and its escalating conflict with Hezbollah.<\/p>\n
Mohamed, the Emirati leader, met separately in Washington this week with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. Starmer met with Biden at the White House earlier this month. The only other foreign leader Harris is scheduled to see this week is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to a person familiar with her schedule.<\/p>\n
Zelensky said over the weekend that he intended to discuss plans for his country\u2019s conduct of the war with Biden, congressional leaders and both presidential nominees. Trump, at a campaign rally in Georgia on Tuesday, derided the Ukrainian president as \u201cthe greatest salesman on Earth,\u201d expressing doubt that Kyiv could fend off Russia\u2019s advances but also boasting that he could end the conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re stuck in that war unless I\u2019m president,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
A Trump spokesman declined to comment on the meetings.<\/p>\n
This week\u2019s engagements are notable because they include foreign leaders beyond those known to be friendly with Trump. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose nationalist agenda is acclaimed by many of the former president\u2019s supporters, visited Trump in July. Trump has also spoken to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, a relationship he cultivated while in the White House, including by making Riyadh his first foreign stop as president.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not unheard of for presidential candidates to engage with representatives of foreign governments. Both Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton met with foreign officials while campaigning for the presidency in 2016. During his bid for the White House in 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama also met with foreign heads of state during a swing through Europe and the Middle East.<\/p>\n
But private citizens are barred from interfering with U.S. diplomatic relationships under the Logan Act, a 1799 statute that makes it a felony to engage \u201cwith any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephen I. Vladeck, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, said the extent of interactions between presidential candidates and foreign leaders makes clear that the Logan Act, which has barely been tested in court, is toothless. He said there are good reasons candidates would want to prepare \u2014 and why foreign heads of state would want to get to know possible incoming American leaders. But the potential for abuse is worrisome, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be controversial that people who are outside of the administration should be limited in their ability to influence or undermine the administration\u2019s foreign policy,\u201d Vladeck said. \u201cSomeone running for office might make some sort of backroom deal: \u2018If you do something or don\u2019t do something until I\u2019m elected, I promise to help you if I win.\u2019 That should bother any American.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Foreign leaders traveling to the United States to attend the U.N. General Assembly this week in New York have also been meeting with former president Donald Trump, as they hedge their bets in case of a Trump victory in the November election. Trump is scheduled to meet this week with the president of the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}