“Certainly I would not appear to be beholden to anybody,” the Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte, explained this week. And he needed to explain, because he had just floated the idea of calling President Obama putang ina, or “son of a whore”. No foreigner lectures Duterte about his domestic policy, you see, even if it is does involve extrajudicial drug-war killings.
Obama, who cancelled his meeting with Duterte in Laos because of the comment, does some snubbing of his own – as Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, and Haider al-Abadi, Iraq’s prime minister, will attest. But the US president is always the best target for any leader who wants to show that he (usually) will not be pushed around. Indeed, Duterte joins quite a catalogue of Obama-snubbers.
China
The situation: Air Force One lands at Hangzhou for the 2016 G20 summit.
The snub: Rather than striding down the plane’s main exit on to a red carpet with a majestic wave, as is usual for visiting heads of state, Obama had to use his own metal stairs in “the ass” of the plane. China may feel it has plenty of reasons to snub the US, and generally controls these events precisely, but the chaotic scenes as officials shouted at one another afterwards suggest that honest incompetence may well have played a part.
Obama’s response: “This is not the first time that these things happen and it doesn’t just happen here. It happens in a lot of places including, by the way, sometimes our allies.”
Saudi Arabia
The situation: Air Force One lands at Riyadh in April for a summit to discuss stability in the Gulf.
The snub: King Salman did not meet Obama at the airport. Instead, the poor old governor of Riyadh, Prince Faisal bin Bandar Al Saud, was given the job. Nor was Obama’s arrival broadcast on Saudi television, unlike the arrivals of the other leaders. Saudi Arabia has become increasingly displeased with Washington over growing US friendliness with Iran. The country welcomed George W Bush with great honours for his last visit in 2008. This was definitely a snub.
Obama’s response: Some stilted diplomatic stuff about the American people sending their greetings when he and Salman finally met.
Israel
The situation: A visit in March by the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The snub: It wasn’t just that Netanyahu cancelled his visit to Washington, during which he had been invited to meet Obama (though that would be startling enough). It was that the Israelis didn’t even tell the White House, which heard about the cancellation by reading press reports. Relations between Obama and Netanyahu have wavered between bad and awful more or less throughout Obama’s presidency, so rudeness isn’t hard to explain.
Obama’s response: Press secretary Josh Earnest said that the administration was not insulted by the cancellation, but “if they weren’t able to make the meeting, they should have just told us before they told a reporter”.
Three Miami Dolphins
The situation: A long-delayed ceremony to mark the team’s perfect 1972 season.
The snub: Unable to visit the White House in 1973 (President Nixon had a few problems at the time), the 1972 winning team were invited back in 2013 to meet President Obama. Three of them, however, declined on political grounds. “We’ve got some real moral compass issues in Washington,” said one of them, Jim Langer. “I don’t want to be in a room with those people and pretend I’m having a good time.”
Obama’s response: “Some people may be asking why we’re doing this after all these years. And my answer is simple: I wanted to be the young guy up here for once.”
