Us politics

Donald Trump is not wasting any time on trade. Or is he? In his video message about what he’ll do on day one, he said he’d abandon Barack Obama’s plan to broker a 12-country free-trade agreement for the Pacific region, the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (or TPP). But that’s the thing with the Donald – it’s impossible to say if he’s serious or just collecting material for a new chapter in The Art of the Deal. Does he really want to pull out of the TPP? Or is his threat just part of a negotiation?  Killing the TPP would be a waste – but for other reasons than the economy. It certainly wouldn’t ‘bring back

At least two former Spectator figures understood things about the recent American contest which eluded most commentators. The first is our former proprietor, Conrad Black. Disagreeing with the anti-Trump conservative National Review, for which he writes, Conrad filed a powerful piece at the time of Trump’s nomination: ‘What the world has witnessed, but has not recognised it yet, has been a campaign of genius.’ He enumerated virtually every issue where Trump was nearer to the voters than Democrats, the media, and other Republicans. The second is Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, nowadays the Telegraph’s international business editor. In the 1980s, Ambrose wrote wonderful pieces from central America for The Spectator, the only British

There are plenty of theories about how Donald Trump pulled off his shock victory. But however he did manage to achieve one of the unlikeliest political upsets in history, one thing seems clear: social media won the day for the Donald. The starting gun was fired when Hillary Clinton called Trump’s supporters a ‘basket of deplorables’. Clinton wasn’t talking about the egg-faced trolls of Twitter when she made this remark, but it was a moniker they happily took up. It also gave this loose outfit the confidence of mainstream recognition – enabling Trump supporters to kick-start their most important election mission: starting arguments with Democrats. They never won these rows

Is Donald Trump about to do the impossible? No, I don’t mean become President of the United States. That’s in the bag. I’m asking if he is going to Make Journalism Great Again? He has, as we all know, humiliated the media. The media which created him, then tried and failed to destroy him. Thousands upon thousands of journalists are now feeling ashamed of themselves — even if they can’t yet admit it — for having got the story so wrong. But is their industry suffering? Is it heck! Trump’s decision to carry on attacking the New York Times on Twitter even after winning the election might upset the paper’s

Life, like they say, comes at you fast. Just a week ago the reality-based world worried that the American people might send a con-man to the White House. Now serious people intoning serious thoughts implore us to think it’s a good thing that Donald Trump is a con-man. This is the peg from which hope hangs, at any rate: Trump is a liar and a fraud and a man who doesn’t have any core convictions, so, you know, perhaps everything will be fine. Or not as bad as you thought. We can put away all that stuff we heard on the campaign trail because, like, he doesn’t – or can’t

The news that Donald Trump has appointed Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee Chairman, as his Chief of Staff is shocking — shockingly conventional. In his victory speech on Tuesday night, Trump made it clear that he felt he owed Priebus a lot for his campaign’s success. ‘Reince is really a star,’ he said. ‘And he is the hardest-working guy.’ So arguably the appointment is not a surprise. As usual, however, Trump seems to be playing a cleverer game than his opponents realise. His administration team seemed happy to let the media believe that he was going to give the Chief of Staff job to Steve Bannon, his campaign manager

Even before Donald Trump takes the oath of office on 20 January next year, he has already made the history books. In the 240 years of our Republic, not one person has ever been elected to the presidency without having served in public office or as a general of the Army. On election day, the American people picked one of the best-known businessmen in the nation to become its 45th president. This news completely flummoxed the media and political establishment. On election night at about 5pm Eastern time, I received a call from one of the top political guns in the country. He told me the exit poll data and other tracking

Hillary Clinton may have been a woeful candidate, but she just delivered a classy defeat speech. She did what everybody thought Donald Trump wouldn’t do — accept defeat graciously. ‘Donald Trump is going to be our president,’ she said. ‘We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.’ ‘Our responsibility as citizens is to keep doing our part to build that better, stronger, fairer America we seek. And I know you will.’ She thanked her running mate Tim Kaine and her team, and even threw in a few good jokes. Her voice cracked at certain points, but she retained her dignity. ‘Never stop believing that fighting for what’s

Today’s reports about the confident noises coming from Hillary Clinton’s camp made me think about the reports I picked up about how confident David Cameron was about the EU referendum on voting day. We later found out, his pollster Andrew Cooper had research from his firm, Populus, predicting a ten-point victory. The MPs I spoke to, who had been out campaigning in the field, seemed to agree: after all this fuss, Brexit would all blow over. By lunchtime on polling day, the bookmakers put the odds of Leave at 15pc; they would later sink to 7pc. The noises that I picked up – that noises pretty much everyone in my trade