The belief that educating future leaders of other countries helps spread the values of the country of study has inspired many foreign-education programmes. This column uses data on the education and UN voting patterns of 831 world leaders to show that foreign-educated leaders tend to be less friendly with former hosts, but more friendly with countries that share the host’s culture and politics. This appears to reflect a tension between ‘affinity’ with former hosts and ‘allegiance’ to domestic voters.