It’s become so routine it rarely provokes comment. The UK pays hundreds of millions for a deportation partnership with Rwanda, whose leader Paul Kagame ‘won’ a fourth term last year with 99 per cent of the vote. The EU puts nearly $9 billion to an anti-migration deal with Egypt, whose autocrat, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, took power in a military coup; the subsequent crackdown saw at least 2,500 civilians killed.
Trump has taken the US presidency to new lows, including becoming the first leader of the United States to be impeached twice and more recently deploying plain clothes immigration snatch squads across the country and showing himself all too willing to ignore domestic law. He has a famous affection for authoritarians like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and has cut a deportation deal with El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, who has 1.7 per cent of his own population behind bars. No matter – in September Trump was granted the singular honour of being the first foreign leader given two state visits to the UK.
