PM's Trump realpolitik looks like appeasement

The sight of President Trump dropping pages of a “trade deal” between the US and UK was symbolic of the way the White House solipsist operates. Whether deliberate or accidental, the incident had the British prime minister once again looking subservient as he stooped to the ground to pick up the pieces.

- William Keegan @williamkeegan

This was before Donald Trump contemptuously insulted his host prime minister, Mark Carney of Canada, and the other members of the G7 by walking out early. It was insulting to other leaders and their staff, some of whom had crossed the world to attend the meeting. And yet another slap in the face to the concept of global cooperation that has characterised the postwar world.

Global cooperation in economic matters has had its ups and downs, and it was for this reason that the leaders of five leading industrial nations — the US, UK, France, West Germany and Japan - formed, along with Italy, what was initially the G6 in 1975. I covered the first meeting, in Rambouillet outside Paris, which had been called in the belief, or hope, that leaders conferring in relative privacy could overcome some of the tensions that impeded negotiations between their ministers, not least on trade.