COMMENT | Observers of the recent meeting of the US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak may have underestimated the admiration that the two leaders have for each other and their shared ideological leanings – besides their common interest in spending time with golf buddies.

Trump has gone on record during his recent Republican presidential campaign to famously declare: “My whole life I’ve been greedy, greedy, greedy. I’ve grabbed all the money I could get. I’m so greedy. But now I want to be greedy for the United States. I want to grab all that money. I’m going to be greedy for the United States.”

The first part of his declaration no one should have any doubt about.  

As to the second part, let history judge if Trump is able to protect the interest of the United States through his principle of "greed and me, first and last".

For now, he has severe problems with his home audience, recording the lowest rating of any president since approval rating polls on US presidents started in the 1940s.

In the last few days there has been a slight uptick in Trump's approval rating. But this cannot be attributed to Najib's visit.

The visit of our prime minister – Trump's “favourite prime minister” according to a signed photo said to be prominently displaced in Najib's office – may be trumpeted by the local media as a triumph and a coup.

The New Straits Times, for example, has given pride of place to an article by foreign affairs magazine The Diplomat, which noted that it was the second visit by a Southeast Asian leader to Trump's White House (after Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc of Vietnam), and assessed the visit as “a feat within the context of the bilateral relationship.”

An own goal?

However, more astute Malaysia watchers are wondering if the prime minister's side may have kicked an own goal in pushing for the visit, which appears planned to boost Najib's image and BN's prospects in the coming 14th General Election.

The feedback of respected media in the United States and internationally has not only been unanimously critical, it has also put the spotlight again on the US Department of Justice's (DOJ) probe – its largest kleptocracy investigation ever – into potential fraud surrounding the 1MDB fund and, among other alleged crimes, as to whether the prime minister, indirectly referred to as “Malaysian Official 1,” diverted more than US$1billion into his own bank account.

In a stinging op-ed on Sept 6, the widely-read and influential Wall Street Journal urged Trump to cancel the meeting using domestic concerns as a pretext. Assessing it as a mistake to accord Najib a visit, the paper identified him as an authoritarian who may be implicated in the money-laundering scandal involving 1MDB.  

“Any embarrassment is better than giving a scandal-tainted leader a White House photo-op,” the editorial concluded.

Now that the visit is over, follow-up news reports have focused on whether it was appropriate for the prime minister and his entourage to stay at the Trump International Hotel – a move seen as injudicious, if not unethical, in view of the president's personal interest in the hotel.

Cynical reports have described stays by foreign delegations at the hotel, which is managed by Trump's children, as creating opportunities for special interests to enrich the president as well as attempt to curry favour with him.

So what did the prime minister actually bring home from the visit? 

The visit ostensibly was to mark 60 years of bilateral relations between the two countries, so there was no new breakthrough in the relationship to pursue.

All that was achieved was the reaffirmation of the US as a strategic partner in trade and ally in regional and security issues against Islamic State (IS) and North Korea.

But Najib did bring a shopping list to help Trump “in strengthening the US economy.” Included in this list was the purchase of Boeing planes estimated to be valued at more than US$10 billion, and a possible similar sum to be invested in the US by Khazanah Nasional and the Employees Provident Fund (EPF).

In return for this generous contribution from our cash-strapped national treasury to the world's strongest economy, Najib did not return empty-handed.

Trump praised Najib for his “major role in not allowing Islamic State and others (terror groups) to exist”. And apparently that was all that Najib was able to squeeze out of his “greedy for the United States” golfing partner.

Will his visit derail the ongoing DOJ investigation into the 1MDB scandal? According to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, when asked if Trump would address the DOJ investigation: "We're not going to comment on an ongoing investigation being led by DOJ, and that investigation is apolitical and certainly independent of anything taking place (during the meeting of the two leaders).”

Whether the visit will influence the DOJ in any way is a big unknown.

But it must be clear to the prime minister's backroom boys assessing the outcome that the prime minister's position on domestic issues such as human rights violations, religious extremism and political abuses remain subject to international scrutiny; and that the prime minister will have even less wriggle room in the event of another controversy or crisis.

LIM TECK GHEE is a retired academician and currently public policy analyst.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.