President Donald Trump, like former President Barack Obama before him, cannot praise his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, enough. Obama once listed Erdoğan as one of his top foreign friends and stated his admiration for Erdoğan was so great, he even took advice from the Turkish leader on how to raise his daughters. From Turkey itself to Syria to the Kurds, Trump’s embrace of Erdoğan has become so tight that Erdoğan appears even to craft American policy by phone with Trump or in meetings with U.S. Ambassador Tom Barrack.
There is a growing dissonance, however, between Trump’s enthusiasm for supposed strong leaders such as Erdoğan and Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again.” Too often, the same authoritarians whom Trump praises interpret his admiration as a green light to target Americans on American soil.
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Erdoğan has used not only the Turkish Embassy in Washington but foundations and cultural organizations to spy on Turkish dissidents, many of whom are American citizens. I am not Turkish, but 15 years ago, when former Foreign Ministry spokesman Namık Tan became Turkey’s ambassador in Washington, the Turkish government began to pepper me and my editors with lawsuits and legal threats as part of a concerted strategy to muzzle criticism.
While Turkey has yet to carry out assassinations on U.S. soil, it is only a matter of time; countries do not sponsor cells and conduct surveillance unless they plan to act. This could occur soon, as Trump’s deference to Turkey leads Erdoğan to believe he can get away with murder.
Iran is open about its intentions. Soon after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, it killed a dissident in Bethesda. The past is precedent. The regime has recently sought to kidnap and kill an outspoken women’s rights activist in New York. Iranian authorities have also threatened to kill first-term Trump officials Brian Hook and Mike Pompeo, as well as the president himself. That Trump has relaxed security on Hook and Pompeo only encourages Iran.
China has been so bold as to set up informal police stations affiliated with internal state security to spy on and even discipline Chinese nationals in the United States. The Chinese Communist Party actively cultivates students who spy and report on classmates as a condition for permission to study abroad.
Despite its cultivation of American think tanks, Azerbaijan’s caviar diplomacy and the public image it seeks to project as a bastion of tolerance is one of the world’s most brutal dictatorships, scoring less than Russia and China on political freedom indices. In recent years, it has crossed the Rubicon and begun targeting dissidents and families of dissidents on U.S. soil. The son of one prominent Azerbaijani critic, for example, had his home broken into and tossed in New Jersey in an incident law enforcement attributed to Azerbaijani security.
African countries have now gotten in on the game. Eritrean diplomats and fake cultural organizations exist to spy on the Eritrean community. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki refers to the pro-government diaspora as the regime’s “fourth front.” In 2024, fourth front groups hired American law firms to pepper and harass Eritrean oppositionists with nuisance suits, an expensive prospect meant to silence them. For example, the Eritrean Association in greater Seattle sued Eritrean democracy activists at the U.S. District Court in Tacoma.
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Cameroon is the latest country to turn its sights on its American diaspora. President Paul Biya is 92 years old and is rarely seen as henchmen govern in his name. Tapang Ivo, the former spokesman for the Ambazonia Defense Forces, sued pro-Biya activist Emmanuel Nsahlai for false reports leading to the “swatting” of Ivo’s home in the U.S. Minnesota-based activists Benedict Kuah and Pascal Kikishiy Wongbi also face harassment due to tendentious Cameroonian reports to the FBI.
In May 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened sanctions against states such as Switzerland that punish American free speech. Increasingly, though, this is the tip of the iceberg. If America comes first, Trump and Rubio must prioritize all attacks on Americans and punish not only Iran and China, but also African states and supposed allies who now target Americans on the home front.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is the director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.