Usa

I am not sure that Melania Trump had the introduction of Henry IV Part 2 in mind when she sat down for her free and frank discussion with the jackals of the — er, with a respected ABC correspondent during her recent trip to Africa. But time and again she dilated upon the ‘unpleasant’, erring and intrusive ‘speculation’ of the media. In Shakespeare’s play, the action starts with a warning: ‘Rumour is a pipe/ Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures/ And of so easy and so plain a stop/ That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,/ The still--discordant wavering multitude,/ Can play upon it.’ There are a lot of chattering, still discordant heads on view in Tom Llamas’s sit-down with the First Lady.

 Sydney For decades, Australia has been known as ‘the lucky country’. At the end of the world geographically, we are separated from the global troublespots by vast oceans. We have recorded 27 years of uninterrupted growth, partly because of a surge in exports of commodities to China. At the same time, our tough border protection policies boost public confidence in, as John Howard put it, ‘who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come’. As a result, our politics have not been profoundly affected by the kind of populist forces dismantling established parties across Europe. Nor have we witnessed an anti-globalisation backlash. Not for us any Trump- or Brexit-like insurgencies.

Is the "American Dream", as Donald Trump claims, dead? Is “America First” a policy of national pride or a dogwhistle to white supremacists? In this week’s books podcast we take the long view. My guest, Sarah Churchwell, excavates the long histories and surprisingly variable meanings of these two phrases in her new book Behold, America: A History of America First and the American Dream — and shows how central they have been to the United States’s long argument with itself about the meaning of the nation, and how they continue to be so today. Listen to more episodes of Spectator Books and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

A decision on one of the more controversial of U.S. President Donald Trump's protectionist policies was yesterday postponed as the U.S. extended the exemption from tariffs on steel and aluminium imports for a handful of allies including the European Union. The news comes in the wake of talks with Europe's 'big hitters', French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who left Washington with seemingly little to show for their efforts. But this reprieve might quietly be considered a victory--so long as the Europeans can figure out a way to make it permanent. As tensions with China escalate, the bloc will hope that Trump is realising he needs the economic might of his close European allies.

This is an extract from Martin Vander Weyer's 'Any Other Business' column in this week's Spectator. 'Stocks plunge as China hits US goods with tariffs,’ said a headline after the long weekend, and the FTSE100 duly dipped below 7,000. But I wonder what a serious trade war would look like — and how markets would respond if the White House and Beijing took the gloves off. Last year, China exported $500 billion worth of goods to the US, while US exports to China amounted to $135 billion. Last month, President Trump announced import tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese steel and aluminium, 10 per cent of the total import bill.

Like every journalist in Washington, I’m enthralled by the new Michael Wolff book, Fire and Fury, which depicts Donald Trump as a president in steep mental decline, derided and despised by his entire entourage, family included. I read with perhaps special attention because I have a book of my own about the Trump phenomenon being released on 16 January, just over a week after Wolff’s. The experience is a little like being the next presenter at the Golden Globes immediately after Oprah Winfrey’s speech. Wolff is interested in personalities, not politics. But while Trump may be stupid or crazy, the people enabling him are neither of those things.

Donald Trump has a point when he asks, with respect to the tearing down of Confederate statues: 'Is it George Washington next? You have to ask yourself, where does it stop?'. The reason he has a point is the rationale being advanced by many advocates for removing such monuments: that the individuals depicted were racist or, in some cases, slaveholders. 'Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson will be removed from the CUNY hall of great Americans because New York stands against racism,' New York Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeted. 'Confederate statues are all about racism,' declares Kevin Drum of Mother Jones. Karen L. Cox, professor of history at the University of North Carolina, insists that, 'The whole point of Confederate monuments is to celebrate white supremacy.