For future historians, Donald Trump’s awkward curtsey when greeting Xi Jinping’s wife, Peng Liyuan, when they arrived at the White House for tea in September of this year may serve as a turning point. In a genuflection not accorded to his allies, the President saluted the epoch he has brought into being. Impelled by a degenerate capitalism in which everything is for sale, and a singularly manipulable demagogue, America is aligning itself with the adversaries of what used to be called the Western world. As in the Yalta conference in February 1945, when a triumvirate of the US, Britain and the Soviet Union carved up Europe into spheres of influence, a new global order is taking shape. Unlike the Yalta settlement, which ended with the Soviet collapse, the international system projected by America, China and Russia today implies a precipitous retreat of Western power.
A bit overwrought. I remain convinced history will treat Trump much more favourably than today’s assessments.
