Usually, when an American politician makes some pronouncement about the inevitability of a united Ireland, it is invariably some Democrat backwoodsman with a Boston brogue, not the President of United States.

Yet Donald Trump has ventured where even bona fide Sons of the Sod John F Kennedy and Joe Biden dared not tread when calling Irish unification ‘one of the naturals of all time’, adding that ‘I’d love to see it unified’ on his visit to the Republic over the weekend.

It is yet another addition to the Trump canon of diplomatic faux pas, a MAGA version of De Gaulle declaring ‘Vive le Quebec libre’ when on a visit to Canada in 1967. A penny for the thoughts of King Charles – ‘the greatest king, in my book’ as described by Trump – about a fellow head of state hypothetically portioning off part of his realm, especially after the flummery of recent state visits.It is highly unlikely that any real affinity towards Irish nationalism or any nationalist movement is nestled within the Trump psyche. Much like his recent comments about revisiting the US stance on Argentina’s coveting of the Falkland Islands, this needs to be rationalised as a form of punishment for the UK’s lack of support for his misadventures in the Middle........

© The Spectator