Paul Cheesmond

The post second world war settlement - laws and institutions that constrain rogue states and remove barriers to trade - has disproportionately benefited the rich countries of the west, Japan and China. But it underpinned the most sustained period of peace and rising prosperity in recorded history. So it is both shocking and extraordinary that in just the past few days the president of the country that has benefited most, the US, has shredded that settlement. His assault on free trade with his tariffs is already squeezing living standards and slowing growth in his own country The whole world will also be poorer. However it is his decision to suspend military aid to the democracy of Ukraine while praising the autocracy of Putin‘s Russia that is the most alarming. It’s the end of an alliance between Europe and America that has defended our freedoms and our way of life since most of us were born. Why would Donald Trump do this? The only explanation is that he sees himself as the modern global equivalent of a feudal Lord, even perhaps a character in a real life Game of Thrones. He is carving up the world and its spoils with China’s Xi and Russia’s dictator Putin So the big question for Starmer, Macron, and Germany’s soon-to-be chancellor Merz, plus the other leaders of Europe, is whether they can collectively take our fate back into our own hands, by simultaneously expanding our militaries and our defence industries, while belatedly and radically re-engineering our stagnant economies. There are already important signs they get it. The point is that if we in Europe can’t stand up for liberty. democracy, fraternity and equality, who will? There is an old saying that you should never waste a crisis. If we waste this one, the epoch- defining history Trump is thrusting on us will do us and our children incalculable harm. Sorry about that.