AS POPULAR AS THE SLUTTIEST GIRL AT THE BAR:

According to The Washington Post's Josh Rogin, NPR, and other reports, Chinese leaders began lobbying for a face-to-face meeting with Trump as soon as possible in his presidency. Ahead of the April visit by President Xi Jinping to the United States, Trump warned that their meeting would be "a very difficult one." That was a reasonable prediction. Trump had spent much of the campaign assailing China, complaining that the country was a currency manipulator (which had not been true since 2014) and that he would take a much harder line than the Obama administration  had.

As it happened, the meeting with Xi was something of a love-fest. Trump and his spokesman have boasted since about the very good relationship they created with China's leader, and hailed their friendship. If Trump was pleased with the outcome, Xi must have been ecstatic. The Chinese president emerged from the meeting with warm praise from Trump; a concession from the U.S. president that China was not manipulating its currency; and conciliatory statements about China's ability to twist the arm of North Korea, its wild-eyed, nuclear-armed neighbor.

Trump explained the last of these flip-flops in an interview with The Wall Street Journal:

He then went into the history of China and Korea. Not North Korea, Korea. And you know, you're talking about thousands of years ... and many wars. And Korea actually used to be a part of China. And after listening for 10 minutes I realized that not--it's not so easy. You know I felt pretty strongly that they have--that they had a tremendous power over China. I actually do think they do have an economic power, and they have certainly a border power to an extent, but they also--a lot of goods come in. But it's not what you would think.

The explanation was remarkable not only for Trump's frank admission that he knew little about the background of the Korean Peninsula, but for his equally frank admission that the leader of a foreign country--and not just any foreign country, but a major American rival that Trump had repeatedly savaged rhetorically--could reverse his understanding of a key issue with just 10 minutes of persuasion.

It is no wonder that the Russians were eager to get in a room with Trump, but Russia and China were not the only foreign countries to recognize how easily swayed Trump could be.

Erdogan congratulates Trump on his "legendary" triumph in the 2016 election. This man knows his audience well. pic.twitter.com/dxrDImIoFw

— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) May 16, 2017

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