Like most foreign leaders coming to visit President Donald Trump, the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will look to make a personal connection with his American counterpart on Tuesday as he seeks a new trade deal.

“How’s Imelda?” Trump asked the Philippine leader when they first spoke in November, according to an official familiar with the call, sending his regards to the onetime first lady of the Philippines and a fellow cultural figurehead of the 1980s and 90s.

Trump has long placed a premium on family ties and genetics as a measure of people’s value, including for foreign leaders and members of his staff. He appeared to be impressed in the lead-up to Tuesday’s meeting with Marcos Jr.’s connections to an infamous period in Philippine history, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“A great family, great family legacy and highly respected in this country. I know that because I have many friends in the Philippines,” Trump said as Tuesday’s meeting was getting underway.

Trump and Imelda Marcos first crossed paths decades ago as members of the international jet set — he as a New York businessman and she as the wife of strongman leader Ferdinand Marcos, famous for her extravagant taste financed by public funds and amassing a massive collection of shoes while her husband imposed martial law.

The two attended parties together in New York, including during the period when Imelda Marcos and her husband were forced into exile in Hawaii after being unseated by a popular uprising. They fled the country with crates of gold and pesos.

  • hopesdead@startrek.website
    12·
    3 days ago

    Trump really is crazy.

    EDIT: For the non-Filipinos reading this, Marcos family is the most hated family in the Philippines. So much so that when the late Ferdinand died, he was in Hawaii, exiled. The government refused to let his body be returned for four years. After that they didn’t let his body be buried until 2016. People protested his burial. To think anyone would believe the Marcos family is respected, indeed qualifies a a symptom of being crazy.

    EDIT 2: I once had to explain why Confederate statues represented an offensive part of U.S. history to my immigrant grandmother by comparing them to a hypothetical status of Marcos being erected in her hometown.