Trumps crazy tariffs make America look like a joke

I have always been convinced that Donald Trump is a moron, albeit a dangerous one imbued as he is with a colossal ego and limitless self confidence. His first Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he was a moron (with added profanity) and it’s hard to believe his IQ is much above 70 if at all. This makes him a moron in my book and probably in yours too. If there was any doubt, that was dispelled on Wednesday when he spent the best part of an hour addressing an audience in the White House rose garden and millions watching on TV across America and beyond. The numskulls sitting in front of him all applauded as he took a wrecking ball to the global economy, stock markets in the US and across the world, and the finances of his fellow Americans.

Brexit still a drag on Northern Ireland

As Donald Trump fires the opening salvos of his trade war, Brexit continues to apply hammer blows to the wedge being driven between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. You can see how the Windsor Framework is impacting businesses in the province, almost certainly forcing more and more firms into working with suppliers and counterparties in the south. A Newsletter from the Northern Ireland Assembly (NIA), ironically titled Brexit and Beyond, 1 April 2025, reveals the extent to which trade is being throttled and diverted away from Great Britain.

Trump aide claims US is being 'invaded'

Trump now claims he’s upset with Putin. He told NBC listeners he was: "...very angry, pissed off, when... when Putin started getting into Zelensky's credibility, because that's not going in the right location." Considering he's been doing exactly the same for weeks, I think it's far more likely Putin has told Trump not to be so openly pro-Russia, to give a bit more credibility to the whole charade. The president also said he wasn't joking about running for a third term and hinted there are ways around the Constitution, saying: “There are methods which you could do it.”  I believe he would try that in a heartbeat.

Trump is trashing the US legal system

If you want to know what might happen when a government is taken over by an organised crime syndicate, you only need to follow the major reputable American news outlets at the moment. It is amazing to me that just a couple of months ago, the world’s most powerful nation was well-respected globally, governed by a reliable, law-abiding administration following the constitution and accepting the norms common among Western democracies. It all seems a very long time ago now.  

Fallout from the Signalgate affair spreads wider

Rachel Reeves seems certain to announce more spending cuts later today and will probably try to sneak in a few tax rises too, as the economy continues to struggle. I am disappointed that she and Starmer have closed their minds against the obvious solution to the sluggish post-Brexit growth problem that has bedevilled us for the last decade. Trump’s eccentric attitude to Europe, his bizarre pro-Kremlin approach to global issues, and now the 25% tariffs on our car exports ought to be driving us into the arms of Brussels, but even all that isn’t quite enough - yet. However,  be in no doubt that pressure to do the right thing is mounting.

Trump and the Waltz debacle

The story about America’s war plans for an attack on the Houthis in Yemen being accidentally shared with the editor-in-chief of a political magazine is quite a bombshell, the echoes of which are still reverberating around the world. The BBC described it as a stunning security breach. Senior members of Trump’s cabinet used a proprietary messaging service known as Signal to exchange views, plus top secret details of targets and weapons deployed, with each other and inadvertently with Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic. He was surprised to get what amounts to highly classified information, unsolicited and in real-time, hours before the attacks took place.

Farage and his grassroots at odds over mass deportation

We may be horrified at what’s happening in America but we shouldn’t be complacent and think something similar couldn’t possibly be seen on this side of the Atlantic. Reform UK Ltd is neck and neck in the polls with the two traditional main parties. Their membership at 200,000 is 50% greater than the Tories and about two thirds of Labour’s. They may have only five MPs who are usually in turmoil but they’re not an insignificant force. Labour perhaps should start taking Reform seriously as their main opposition, as Richard Tice, the party's millionaire energy and foreign-policy spokesman, claims. 

The case for rejoining the EU keeps getting stronger

I started this blog eight years ago because of Brexit and what I perceived then was a massive foreign policy mistake, largely because of its impact on trade and travel. I haven’t changed my mind. If anything, events have shown and continue to show that Britain is now poorer than it otherwise would be by £10s of billions a year. There is zero doubt about that, even Brexiteers are reduced to quietly suggesting things aren’t as bad as some predicted back in the day. It’s hardly a ringing endorsement is it? Only hardcore Brexit optimists now think the whole debacle was worth the candle.  But the Ukraine war and Donald Trump’s second term have revealed that concerns about a loss of trade and tax revenue are far less important than European defence and security issues.

Is the rule of law in America breaking down?

Few things shock in today’s increasingly alienated and unshockable world, but I think I might manage it this morning with a few things that I noted on social media yesterday coming out of America, or at least the America as it is under Donald Trump. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), one of the investigative arms of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seems to have gone rogue and has started to arrest and detain people almost at random. According to the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, 48 people have been 'forcibly disappeared' in the state, having been detained by ICE. Apparently, nobody knows where they are.

American Kompromat, How the KGB cultivated Donald Trump and related tales of sex, greed, power and treachery.

I'm reading a book at the moment by Craig Unger: American Kompromat, How the KGB cultivated Donald Trump and related tales of sex, greed, power and treachery. I can’t decide if it’s just a lot of sensationalised conspiracy theories stitched together to sell a book or if there is genuinely something to it all. That Trump is a KGB (now the FSB) asset is hardly news and as time goes on Trump himself seems determined to convince us all that he is. But Unger makes a plausible case to raise the possibility that the Russians have yet more powerful people in Washington in their pockets and the FSB tentacles are everywhere.