Freddy Gray

When it comes to foreign policy, Donald Trump is neither hawk nor dove. He’s a dealmaker who plays differing sides off each other. In so doing, he ends up disappointing warmongers and peaceniks in equal measure. In March, opponents of the war were accused of cowardice and disloyalty. This week, it’s the peace-sceptics being called ‘Panicans’ On 28 February, when he launched Operation Epic Fury, Trump’s more dovish supporters felt betrayed. The president who had campaigned against regime-change wars began a new conflict by channelling George W. Bush. ‘To the great, proud people of Iran I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,’ he said.

Another weekend, another failed and frankly pathetic attempt to kill the President of the United States. On February 22, a Sunday, Secret Service shot dead an armed 21-year-old male called Austin Tucker Martin, who had entered the Mar a Lago complex, although Donald Trump wasn’t there at the time.  America is in a strange condition when a shoot-out at the White House will be soon forgotten On the Saturday night of April 25, the 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen tried and failed to storm the White House Correspondent’s Dinner at the Hilton hotel in Washington DC. And we all saw what happened there.  Earlier this month, in an incident the news cycle quickly moved past, Secret Service shot an armed individual at the National Mall.

Air Force One is in the air as I write, whizzing from Beijing back to Washington – and Donald Trump leaves China with many questions unanswered. There were warm words on both sides and plenty of friendly symbolism in the President’s big summit with Xi Jinping. But the fundamental great power tensions remain – over trade, technology, and war and peace in the Middle East and Taiwan. Washington and Beijing agree that Iran should never have a nuclear weapon – though it remains unclear the extent to which China will help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Its closure hurts the Chinese economy, of course, but China has significant energy reserves and Xi knows that the pain spreads around the world to his advantage.