President Donald Trump’s seemingly never-ending political war on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe sparked strong reactions across the world this week.
The dramatic developments included Tuesday’s news that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was found guilty of tax and bank fraud, in addition to Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleading guilty to crimes including tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations.
Mr. Manafort’s ruling came in the first criminal trial arising from Mr. Mueller’s probe into alleged Russian election meddling, which Mr. Trump again dismissed as a “witch hunt.”
The Japan Times, in an editorial “Look out for a Trump on the warpath” called Tuesday “the worst day of the Donald Trump presidency to date” and warned that the developments “increase pressure on a mercurial, tempestuous and unpredictable man”.
The Times Tokyo-based editorialists added that “while these developments are domestic, they could have powerful consequences for U.S. foreign policy”.
“The world must prepare for a U.S. president angry, distracted and eager to pick fights to divert attention from his own troubles,” The Times wrote.
An in-depth analysis of the continuing trade war between Washington and Beijing by China Daily’s leading Washington opinion writer, Chen Weihua, speculated that Mr. Trump will use China to re-direct the narrative away from his problems.
“The erupting scandals this week of Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pleading guilty to tax fraud and campaign finance violations and Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort being convicted of tax and bank fraud charges also mean Trump will be happy to use China to divert attention from them,” Mr. Chen wrote.
One of the Middle East’s leading English-language papers, the Abu Dhabi-based The National, titled an editorial “A watershed moment for the Trump presidency,” and noted that “the pressure is mounting for the U.S. president, with troubling implications for the world.”
“This crisis will be felt beyond the borders of the U.S.,” The National argued. “Mr. Trump, for all his woes, still controls the most powerful military the world has ever seen. From countering Iran’s regional adventurism to working towards a Middle East peace plan, the actions of a U.S. president matter. A cloud hanging over the presidency threatens to overshadow global geopolitics.”
It added: “Whatever the outcome, it is crucial Mr. Mueller’s investigation is concluded fairly and expeditiously to return some semblance of normality to the White House.”
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz took another angle, highlighting a Wall Street Journal article which reported that Mr. Cohen’s father, Polish Holocaust survivor Maurice Cohen, “urged his son to be honest about Trump, saying that he did not survive the Holocaust for Trump to destroy his family name”.
Meanwhile, Britain’s London-based The Independent had its lead Friday editorial entitled: “President Trump deserves to be impeached although his conviction is very unlikely.”
Lashing out at Mr. Trump’s prediction that financial markets would “crash” if the Democrats impeached him, Independent editorialists wrote, “well, we knew Donald Trump was a bully, but this is ridiculous.”
• Dan Boylan can be reached at dboylan@washingtontimes.com.
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