Last week, I walked the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, crossing from Canada into the United States. I had a butterfly or two in my stomach. This family holiday was booked some time ago, and a great volume of water has flowed under the bridge since then. Millions fewer people take their holidays in the US now than before President Trump’s second term began. It had been niggling me for a while - should we have added to that tally?

Those butterflies in my stomach, with hindsight, were a result of me buying into a lot of the hype. America is dangerous, unwelcoming, hostile. America has changed because of Trump. Right? Wrong.

What has, in fact, been remarkable to me is just how similar the US and its people are to the last time I was here, before Trump’s presidency. From rural upstate New York to coastal New England, from the urban conurbations of the eastern seaboard to the tourist hotspot of Orlando, it seems to me that little has changed.

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Workers from the Amtrak train to the gas station attendant to the bakery are chirpy and polite, hospitality venues are extremely welcoming and helpful to families, and the transport and digital infrastructure remains outstanding. Little of this can be said of the UK.

A visit to Yankee Stadium on the evening before the 250th anniversary of American independence was the most clarifying social eye-opener,........

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