There is a fine line between diplomacy and debasement. The hyperactivity of President Trump and the US administration means that diplomacy will always have a place, and will always have some chance of success. In reality, though, if we stand back and look at American policy we can see some predictability and make some reasonable conclusions.

As Scots, as Brits and as Europeans, we need to be much clearer-headed about the possibility that the post-war world order, aged 80, is now over. What drives President Trump is not the nature of any deal he manages to concoct between Russia’s President Putin and Ukraine’s President Zelensky; the speed of the deal is a far more important driver. President Trump wants out of Europe, because he simply does not consider it to be part of his kingdom.

Contrary to some, in my view, lazy presumptions, President Trump does not want to rule the world. Quite the opposite; he is a territorial nationalist who wants to rule his own continent. He has telegraphed this persisteltly since taking office - he wants Canada, he wants Greenland, he wants the Panama Canal, and he wants the Gulf of America. He will acquire assets further afield (like Gaza, about which he is at least semi-serious), but he will do it in his role as CEO of America Inc, not as President of the world’s benevolent superpower, which his country has been for the better part of a century.

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There is no ‘special relationship’. The President is just not that into us, folks. Ideologically, he is content for President Putin to do........

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