Us politics

Steve Bannon fast became the most powerful person in the world you’ve never heard of. The man behind the Breitbart website became Donald Trump’s chief strategist and was credited with both Trump’s presidential victory and his wholehearted embrace of an America First, nationalist position in his first month in office. But Bannon’s influence has been on the wane in recent weeks. He’s got into a power struggle with the President’s beloved son-in-law Jared Kushner; despite one of the rules of Trump world being that family always wins. The ‘establishment’ have also gained at his expense. As I say in the magazine this week, the Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and the National

Donald Trump’s Washington is a city of many secrets, but no mysteries. So much about the Trump-Putin story remains unknown, and possibly will never be known. But the fundamentals have never been concealed. In order to help elect Trump as US president, Russian operatives engaged in a huge and risky espionage and dirty tricks operation. Trump and his team publicly welcomed and gratefully accepted help from WikiLeaks, widely regarded as a front for Russian intelligence. Trump surrounded himself with associates and aides, including a campaign chairman and a national security adviser, who had in the past received pay from Russian state TV and pro-Putin oligarchs. In the wake of the

The US missile attack on a Syrian government air base risks escalating the war in Syria still further. Tuesday’s horrific chemical attack was a war crime which requires urgent independent UN investigation and those responsible must be held to account. But unilateral military action without legal authorisation or independent verification risks intensifying a multi-sided conflict that has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. What is needed instead is to urgently reconvene the Geneva peace talks and unrelenting international pressure for a negotiated settlement of the conflict. The terrible suffering of the Syrian people must be brought to an end as soon as possible and every intervention must be judged

On this week’s edition of The Spectator Podcast, we consider President Trump’s growing military ambitions, dissect the problem of radical Islam in our prisons, and judge what makes a perfect marmalade. First, this week’s magazine cover depicts Donald Trump in full Kaiser Wilhelm II costume. The reason for that image is Andrew J. Bacevich‘s assertion that far from being a modern-day Hitler, a better analogue for the new American supremo is the last German emperor. The isolationist image that Trump cultivated during the campaign is beginning to melt away, leaving the possibility of war with North Korea, and even China. Professor Bacevich joins the podcast to discuss the complex military situation, along

Perhaps Steve Bannon isn’t quite as all-powerful within the Trump administration as everybody believed. He’s just been removed from the principals committee of the National Security Council. This news has been understood as a sign that Trump’s new National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster is now calling the shots on foreign policy. The spin in Washington is that Bannon’s role on the NSC had been to act as a ‘check’ on the now disgraced former advisor Mike Flynn, who resigned in February, and with the more level-headed McMaster in charge he’s no longer needed. It’s also emerged that Bannon has kept full level national security clearance. So what’s changed? Something, clearly, for

Donald Trump once said that he wanted to share a hamburger with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. Now that he’s President, fast food diplomacy looks to be off the menu. Instead, the tough talk has started and Trump has used an interview with the FT today to warn that America will act against North Korea unless China clamps down on the regime in Pyongyang. He said: ‘Well, if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you’ That Trump has singled out North Korea is no accident, nor is it much of a surprise. In the weeks after the election, the outgoing Obama administration

Michael Howard (the good one, OM, CH, MC) is 94 and still razor-sharp, but depressed by echoes of the 1930s on both sides of the Atlantic — ‘and I am one of the few people still alive who watched it all happen’. At Wellington he learned, and recites to me from memory, lines from Auden’s 1937 ‘Danse Macabre’: It’s farewell to the drawing-room’s civilised cry, The professor’s sensible whereto and why For the Devil has broken parole and arisen, He has dynamited his way out of prison. Michael believes that President Trump will get his country into a war, and I hear that some of America’s top soldiers share this

Well, that was quick. Along with President Donald Trump’s preliminary budget proposal, Trumpism as a radical new governing philosophy is dead on arrival. Trump was elected in part by voters who preferred Obama to Romney in 2012. They saw in Trump a different kind of Republican from the green-eyeshades accountants whose passion is cutting government spending on the middle class and the poor. During the campaign, Trump sounded more like a New Deal Democrat, promising a trillion dollars in infrastructure investment, the revitalization of manufacturing, and a less aggressive foreign policy. That Trump, it seems, is being held hostage in Mar-a-Lago, while the Trump impersonator who used to pose with

The irresistible force meets the immovable object in Washington tomorrow, as Donald Trump finally comes face to face with Angela Merkel. It seems highly unlikely that they’ll emerge from this meeting holding hands. Not only do these two world leaders disagree about (almost) everything, their personalities could hardly be less compatible. Mrs May may simper that ‘opposites attract’ but Merkel, not May, is Trump’s polar opposite. There’s little prospect of any personal chemistry at the White House this time around. But does this antipathy matter? Of course not. If anything, it’s a plus. In truth, the value of cordial relations between US presidents and foreign premiers is almost entirely confined