Cambodia's Hun Sen comes out as Trump supporter

The strongman cites “mediocre” US-China relations under a Clinton presidency as one of his reasons

South China Morning Post | 3 November 2016

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thursday that he supports Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump becoming the next US president, reasoning that a Trump presidency will lead to a better world.

“Frankly speaking, for me, I really want to see Trump win the election. If Trump wins, the world will be changed and will be better because Trump is a businessman and as a businessman he never wants war,” Hun Sen said in a lecture to about 1,000 police officers at the Royal Police Academy.

Hun Sen reasoned that since Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, in her memoir of her tenure as secretary of state, wrote that she pushed for the United States to go to war in Syria, the world will not be safer if she wins.

He also noted that if Clinton wins, relations between the United States and Russia will face some difficulty while US-China relations will be just be mediocre. But if Trump wins the election, Trump will be a good friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian president is one of few other world leaders to praise Trump, calling him a “very bright and talented person”.

A handful of other endorsements have come from right-wing politicians in Europe, including Hungarian PM Viktor Orban and Czech President Milos Zeman.

In an extraordinarily divisive campaign, Trump has hurled insults at women, hispanics, Muslims and called into question long-standing alliances with nations around the globe.

The endorsement from Hun Sen comes as Trump’s polling numbers have been given a recent lift ahead of Tuesday’s vote, a bump that has by turns horrified, delighted and bamboozled outside observers.

The sudden narrowing of the race has also sent shudders through financial markets, with most investors considering democratic nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a safer, more stable bet.