SINGAPORE — Days before winning the election in 2016, Donald Trump stood on a stage and directed an accusation at a tiny country halfway across the world: Singapore, he said, was stealing American jobs.

Singapore is now on the tip of Mr. Trump’s tongue again — but this time, he’s expressing admiration for its death penalty for drug trafficking. He has reportedly invited government representatives to brief the White House on their approach to drug trafficking, including their use of capital punishment. Mr. Trump seems to believe he can learn a thing or two from Singapore.

This is convenient for the Singapore government, which has been using the global opioid crisis as an argument for the retention of capital punishment. While the American media reported Mr. Trump’s praise for Singapore’s “zero tolerance” stance, the country hanged a 39-year-old Ghanaian named Billy Agbozo on March 9, and a 56-year-old Singaporean, Hishamrudin bin Mohd, on March 16. Both had been convicted of drug trafficking. These are the first two executions of 2018, as far as we know; information about imminent executions is not made available, and the prison service announces the number of hangings only in its annual report.

But the borrowing of ideas hasn’t been a one-way street: the government here has taken a page out of Mr. Trump’s book. The new Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods is holding public hearings to explore measures for tackling “fake news.” The committee is meant to examine a range of options, but there are strong hints that new restrictions on the media are on the way, not least because the law minister, who is also a member of the committee, has already said that legislation is a “no-brainer.”