Disruptor-in-chief

It is appropriate that the 45th President of the United States has come to Britain this week on a working visit rather than the state visit that was originally intended by Theresa May. Donald Trump’s habit of expressing his frank and impolite thoughts through early morning tweets is undiplomatic and demeaning to his office.

It is hard to imagine another leader of a western democracy taking the opportunity to undermine a Prime Minister shortly before arriving in Britain, as Trump did this week by describing the country as being ‘in turmoil’. He then appeared to take sides with Boris Johnson just after the former foreign secretary had resigned in protest at Mrs May’s attempt to unite the cabinet on a shared vision of Brexit.

Yet for all his bluster and offensiveness, Trump often has a point. Take, for example, what he tweeted on Tuesday, shortly before arriving at the Nato summit in Brussels: ‘The European Union makes it impossible for our farmers and workers and companies to do business in Europe (US has a $151 billion trade deficit), and then they want us to happily defend them through Nato, and nicely pay for it.