US President Donald Trump swaps clubs after hitting out of a sand trap during the Liv Golf Pro-Am in 2023 at Trump National in Sterling, Virginia. Photo / John McDonnell, The Washington Post
When President Donald Trump travelled to Qatar in May, a set of golf clubs awaited him.
When Ukrainian President Zelenskyy came to Washington in August, he brought a club from a soldier wounded in the war with Russia.
And when Trump met in Japan with new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, he was loaded down, once again, with golf gifts.
Everywhere the United States President goes, it seems, dignitaries have decided that the way to his heart is through the game he loves.
At least eight countries have given him golf clubs in his second term, according to a list from the State Department.
The art of wooing Trump has taken on new importance during his second term, as foreign leaders seek to ingratiate themselves with a mercurial president who is redefining America’s relationships with the world.
He has levied high and unpredictable tariffs against both perceived foes and allies, as some friends are rewarded with praise or, in the case of Argentina’s right-wing president, Javier Milei, a US$40 billion ($69b) bailout package.
While the donation of a US$400 million luxury jet from Qatar stands alone for its excess in the fight for Trump’s affection, world leaders navigating gift diplomacy have largely settled on attempting to personalise the present.
In the lead-up to Trump’s visits, foreign embassies and small armies of diplomats have been trying to glean the best ways to make a positive impression on Trump.
They know he enjoys flattery and any tangible touches, even if the gifts can be difficult to determine. The calculus has at times produced norm-busting results and generated ethical questions about attempts to buy influence with the President.
“It’s tricky because he seems to have everything doesn’t he?” Takayuki Nishiyama, a political science professor at Seikei University, said with a laugh.
Chief among the golf-related gifts Takaichi presented Trump was a putter that belonged to the late prime minister Shinzo Abe, who befriended Trump and played with him several times.
That gift was given based on the wishes of Akie Abe, the former prime minister’s widow, according to local media reports. He was also given a golf bag signed by Japanese golfer Hideki Matsuyama.
“Oh that’s beautiful,” Trump said, eyeing the gifts. “Thank you very much.”
During Trump’s first term, French President Emmanuel Macron gave him a Louis Vuitton golf bag worth upward of US$8000. Tarzisius Caviezel, the Mayor of Davos, gave him a putter made of hickory valued at US$450.
Those were the only golf-related gifts that he reported, but a House Democratic investigation later found others that he did not disclose, including a US$3755 gold golf driver from Abe just before he took office, followed by a US$460 putter and a US$3040 driver when he was president.
Foreign gifts were largely unregulated until the 1960s when Congress, as a way to prevent bribery and conflicts of interest, passed a law setting limits on what federal employees could keep.
Federal law now requires presidents and others in the executive branch to disclose any gifts from foreign leaders worth more than US$480.
The gifts are considered property of the American public - and can be displayed at a presidential library - but recipients are allowed to purchase the items at a fair market price. As a result, the gifts are typically handed over to the government and later displayed.
“A well-chosen gift can often speak more poignantly than the words exchanged in a bilateral meeting,” said Capricia Marshall, who helped co-ordinate diplomatic gifts as chief protocol officer during the Obama administration.
Marshall typically offered President Barack Obama three choices, based on a foreign leaders’ preferences and interests, leaving the final selections to him.
Sometimes the leaders exchange the gifts in person, with the element of surprise at play, but at other times protocol officers trade the gifts and the leaders open them after the visit.
“It is far more than symbolic,” Marshall said.
“Gifts are a tangible expression of respect and understanding - a real bridge between nations.”
Current administration officials say Trump pays close attention to the selections.
When Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, met Trump in May, the President gave the former hockey player at Harvard University a customised Washington Capitals jersey with the No. 24, a nod to him being his country’s 24th prime minister.
The director of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum was ousted earlier this year after declining to release a sword or other artifacts for the administration to present to King Charles in an invocation of the nations’ World War II ties, according to an account reported by CBS News. Trump instead gave Charles a replica sword.
It’s been a longtime tradition for foreign leaders to exchange gifts and they can be telling, meaningful - and quirky.
President Abraham Lincoln once politely declined an offer of elephants from the king of what is now Thailand.
In 1959, Eisenhower received a baby elephant from the Republic of Congo. In 2005, Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov sent President George W. Bush a puppy. Already the owners of two Scottish terriers, the Bushes donated the new dog to a friend.
President Joe Biden made a part of his political biography that he was raised in the middle class, and among the poorest members of the US Senate - and his gifts could at times reflect that.
During the Group of Seven trip to Germany in 2022, he was given a backpack, playing cards, a Montblanc pen and various food items.
While Qatar has offered Trump an airplane, the only gift reported to Biden was a soccer jersey to commemorate the 2022 World Cup. Saudi Arabia had the biggest splurge, with a set of books and wooden box valued at nearly US$32,000.
Biden has also spent time on the golf course, and memorably debated Trump over who had the better game, but never reported any golf-related gifts.
“I got my handicap, when I was vice-president, down to six,” he said, challenging Trump to a match but only if he carried his own bag of golf clubs.
Trump said Biden’s claimed handicap was “the biggest lie of all”.
“I’ve seen your swing,” he said. “I know your swing.”
Foreign leaders seemed to settle on a different approach for Biden: cuff links.
Costa Rica, Singapore, and Jordan all gave him the item. Ghana gave him a pair valued at US$2000, while the Philippines gave him South Sea cufflinks worth US$3700.
Obama also received lavish gifts, at times of the golf variety. He was given two graphite iron golf clubs from Eikei Suzuki, the Governor of Mie Prefecture in Japan.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave him a Hermes golf bag in 2011 worth US$7750, while Saudi King Salman gave him a set of 10 golf irons and a leather golf bag, along with a number of other gifts that totalled nearly US$523,000.
Trump won’t have to report his foreign gifts for another year, but news reports and foreign governments have detailed some of the exchanges and State Department officials say that golf clubs has been his most frequent gift so far.
He has been given clubs from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Ukraine, and South Korea.
When South Korean President Lee Jae Myung came to the White House in August, he brought a custom-made golf putter that was engraved with Trump’s name and the Nos. 45 and 47 to represent his terms as president. He also gifted two cowboy hats with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan and a handcrafted metal turtle ship.
A week earlier, Zelenskyy met Trump and also came with a golf club, one that had been given to him by Kostiantyn Kartavtsev, who lost his leg in the first months of the war with Russia. Golf had become part of his rehabilitation, and in a video he appealed to Trump to help end the war.
Trump said in a video message that he had watched Kartavtsev’s swing, declaring, “I know a lot about golf, and your swing is great.I also want to thank you for this putter,” Trump said. “It’s beautiful. And it’s made with real love … I appreciate that.”
He praised Ukraine and said: “We’re trying to bring it back to health”.
Still, there’s a limit to the goodwill a leader can expect from a traditional gift, said Timothy Naftali, a historian at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
And Trump has taken gifts to a whole new level, not only in tangible offerings from foreign leaders but in less tangible help to his family business enterprises.
“It is not possible to fully understand the Gaza ceasefire, the current one, without thinking about the role that the Qatari gift played in Trump’s foreign policy,” Naftali said, referencing the pressure Trump placed on Israel after it launched airstrikes in Qatar in an attempt to kill members of Hamas.
“I just can’t imagine that President Trump would have put his ally Bibi Netanyahu in a box had it not been that Bibi’s actions in Doha riled up or annoyed his good friends in Qatar. And his good friends in Qatar gave him a plane.”
South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa referenced the jet in a rare moment of levity at a meeting that veered off the rails after Trump dimmed the lights and showed a video suggesting Ramaphosa was allowing White farmers to undergo violent attacks.
“I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you,” said Ramaphosa, who was joined by several golfers from his home country and gifted Trump a book of South African golf courses.
“I wish you did,” Trump responded. “I’d take it.”
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