It had all been going so well.
Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain had just left Washington on Friday evening after a tense but successful first visit with President Donald Trump for a 10-hour flight to Ankara, Turkey, for her next awkward encounter, with the increasingly autocratic Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
By the time she had landed in Turkey, however, Mr Trump had signed his executive order halting entrance to the United States of all Syrian refugees and of most citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries, including dual nationals. Ms May was beginning to feel the backlash.
After she termed the executive order a US issue, criticism erupted even among her own members of parliament. She was accused of appeasement by a former British diplomat. Protesters gathered outside Downing Street on Monday night, and more than 1.5 million signatures collected on an internet petition demanding that Ms May rescind her invitation for Mr Trump to visit Queen Elizabeth II.
A close relationship with any US president is regarded as crucial by allies and foes alike, but especially by intimates like Britain, Canada, Japan and Mexico. Yet, like moths to the flame, the leaders of those nations are finding that they draw close at their peril. While Ms May is the latest prominent figure to suffer repercussions for her handling of Mr Trump, the leaders of those other three close allies have also felt the sting of public anger soon after what seemed to be friendly telephone calls or encounters. They then find themselves facing a no-win situation, either openly criticising the leader of their superpower ally or pulling their punches and risking severe criticism at home.
One Western leader to escape this fate so far is German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has kept a cool distance from Mr Trump. In a telephone call on Saturday, she reminded him of Washington's obligations under the Geneva Conventions to accept refugees fleeing war, a view underlined by her official spokesman.
The danger of playing nice with Mr Trump should come as little surprise to his country's allies. Besides campaigning on an "America First" platform, he has regularly argued that allies have been taking the United States for a ride, in trade, security and financial terms.
While cordial in public settings with the leaders of those allied nations, Mr Trump has turned on them soon afterward. "The problem for May is that Trump doesn't value relationships. He values strength and winning," said Jeremy Shapiro, director of research at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former senior State Department official. "If you rush to the White House to offer a weak hand of friendship, you guarantee exploitation."
While Mr Trump's executive order was clearly not aimed at Britain, he signed it on Friday, just a few hours after Ms May left. "You can show up at his doorstep and hold his hand so he doesn't fall down a ramp, but that doesn't mean a few hours later when he's signing an order he thinks at all about how it affects you, your politics or your citizens," Mr Shapiro said.
Particularly problematic for Ms May was her offering the invitation to Mr Trump to undertake a state visit with Queen Elizabeth II this year, which was accepted. The internet petition to parliament calling for the cancellation of the invitation says the visit "would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen".
By Monday evening in Britain, there had been more than 1.5 million signatures, and some were enjoying themselves watching the numbers rise in real time.
At a large protest outside Downing Street, people urged Ms May to cancel the state visit and said that while relations with Washington were important, they should be cooler toward Mr Trump.
Amber Curtis, 21, a film student who is half-British and half-Iranian, said that she worried for her family and friends in the United States. "It sends a bad message if he comes here after this ban," Ms Curtis said of Mr Trump. "I wouldn't say that I want no relationship at all, but he cannot come here under the terms of this ban. The terms need to be renegotiated."
Negma Yamin, 50, a teacher of Pakistani origin, was in tears. "I'm so upset as a fellow Muslim; I hate the persecution," she said. Ms May "should absolutely have no relationship with him", she added. "You can't negotiate with a person like that. What is he going to do with the people? He's dividing the US, he's dividing the world."
On Monday, Downing Street insisted that the invitation stood. But who knows how Mr Trump will react?
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan has the distinction of being among the first to feel the sting of Mr Trump's actions. In a meeting in November in New York, Mr Abe urged Mr Trump, then the president-elect, not to abandon a major trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
One of Mr Trump's first actions in office was to abandon the deal, which many considered a victory for China, even though the pact had been blocked in the Senate. Mr Trump has long questioned the United States' financial and military commitment to Japan's security, and he has criticised the automaker Toyota for planning to produce cars in Mexico.
An editorial in the Mainichi Shimbun, a centre-right paper in Japan, questioned why Mr Abe was not taking a stronger stand against Mr Trump: "It is hard to understand why the prime minister is defending a president who destroyed the trade accord -- formed after nearly six years of arduous negotiations -- on his fourth day in office."
Given the stakes, Mr Abe has refrained from open criticism of Mr Trump and is set to meet with him in Washington in early February.
The Trump effect has been felt even in Australia, where Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has come under criticism for saying it is not his job to comment on the domestic policies of other countries. This after securing a pledge from the president on Sunday to honour an Obama administration agreement to accept refugees detained on the Pacific islands of Nauru and Manus.
In Canada, too, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has had his Trump moments. Mr Trump is deeply unpopular in the country, but as Mr Trudeau's father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, once said, proximity to the United States "is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant; no matter how friendly or temperate the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt".
So instead of provoking a fight, Mr Trudeau moved swiftly to make contact with officials in the new administration and reshaped his cabinet to promote ministers with experience in the United States. Mr Trump made problems right away for the Canadian leader by giving the go-ahead to the Keystone XL pipeline, putting Mr Trudeau in an uncomfortable position between environmentalists and oil producers.
If Mr Trump goes after Canada on trade issues, as seems likely, Mr Trudeau is expected to become significantly more vocal and critical. But to date he has avoided public criticism of the US president, a reticence that may have helped over the weekend, after Mr Trump's executive order on immigration. Canada was able to get quick clarification from the White House that the directive would not affect the movement of Canadian citizens and dual nationals into the United States.
After fumbling its initial response, Britain got essentially the same clarification 15 hours later, which London hailed as a result of its special relationship with Mr Trump. While Britain may have been influential, however, the White House was narrowing the initial interpretations of the executive order. But not before Ms May was attacked for timidity in the face of outrage by her legislators and by the opposition.
Still, the "special relationship" has never been an equal one, so some degree of humiliation often goes with the territory. As Twitter user @Locke1689, a professed "progressive conservative", wrote: "Actively snubbing the world's only superpower would be gross diplomatic self-harm." ©2017 The New York Times
Steven Erlanger is an American journalist who has reported from more than 120 countries.