The world’s self-styled strongman reveals his weakness

Has an American president ever wasted so much political capital, so quickly, for so little gain?

- Steve Bloomfield

As Donald ‘Trump flew into Davos last week, he appeared to be the lord of all he surveyed.He would take Greenland by force, be it military or economic. Canada too, he joked, might one day be his. Meanwhile, his new Board of Peace would supplant the United Nations, making him king of the world for life.

By the time he flew out of Davos on Thursday, the charade had collapsed. Undone by a single great speech, a united front from supposedly lesser powers, and his own bizarre behaviour. Make no mistake, this was the moment when the rest of the world realised that Donald Trump ~ who tries so hard to show off his supposed strength — is weak.

He only has himself to blame - not that a man with such an outsize ego would be capable of such self-reflection. Every time he opened his mouth, he dug a bigger hole. There were three moments in Davos that sealed his fate.

The first was his set-piece speech in front of an audience of business leaders and politicians. For those who don’t watch Trump very often — or have only seen him in front of a partisan whooping crowd ~ his incoherent, at times incomprehensible, speech was shocking.