As Donald Trump questions the worth of the UN and NATO, Brian Taylor examines how the world copes with a President who believes that he alone has the answers.

Did you catch Donald Trump’s speech when he unveiled his “beautiful, everlasting and glorious” Board of Peace? You know, the new set-up that is destined to save the planet, effortlessly.

At one point, as he ambled without obvious direction through global politics and personal obsessions, he said his pet project (chair, Trump, D) would work “for the whole region of the world.”

It was apparently a linguistic slip. But President Trump has abolished error. So no quick correction. Rather, he instantly justified the comment by adding “because I’m calling the world a region.”

There, in miniature, we have the Trump perspective. He is always right. His vision, alone, is the path to peace and prosperity. Contrary views are dismissed and ignored.

Trump is a showman, a marketing man. When he advances a scheme, he does so with over-arching vigour. It is more than a passing whim, a pebble in a puddle. It is the best idea in the best of all possible scenarios.

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Does that mean, then, that he is willing to deal? That he simply over-bids his hand in order to tempt the unwary into a contract – which, in reality, was his objective from the outset.

There is some evidence for that. For example, on trade negotiations and over the threatened Greenland tariffs. That thought comforts anxious diplomats and officials. They tell each other: read his book, the Art of the Deal, it’s all there.

However, I suspect and fear there is rather more in play. It would seem that........

© Herald Scotland