It’s almost as if Donald Trump “looked into Xi Jinping’s soul” when the Chinese president visited Mar-a-Lago a few weeks ago. What else can explain the U.S. president’s bizarre affinity for the repressive Chinese dictator, which he laid out in a disturbing interview with Reuters on Thursday?

In the interview, Trump gives Xi a clean characterological bill of health. Basing his appraisal on two–two!–meetings the pair held (enough, Trump claims, to get to know Xi “very well”), Trump judges Xi a “good man . . . a very good man.” Far be it for me to question President Trump’s judgment—unlike he, I’ve never eaten chocolate cake with a Chinese dictator—but it’s worth bearing in mind that Xi has led a brutal political crackdown at home, initiated an aggressive (and illegal) expansion in the South China Sea, and tightened the screws on restive provinces.