Humiliation

Trump doesn’t do diplomacy. He does theatre – and the warm-up act is always humiliation. Merkel told off for freeloading. Macron mocked for trade. Trudeau dismissed as weak. Sunak treated like a naughty schoolboy. Even Zelenskyy, pleading for his country’s survival, had to hear lectures about corruption and gratitude. It’s bullying masquerading as foreign policy.

Carney got the Oval Office version. Trump floated annexing Canada, as if a sovereign country were just another golf resort. Carney shot back that Canada wasn’t for sale – not now, not ever. He was calm, he was sharp. But the very fact he had to swat away such rubbish on camera was humiliation enough.

Starmer fared no better. In Washington, he tried to talk Ukraine and trade. Trump cut across him with a lecture: slash taxes, curb immigration, copy Farage. In Scotland, the same routine. A British prime minister reduced to a prop in the Trump show.

And then there’s the contrast. All these democrats – Carney, Starmer, Merkel, Macron, Trudeau, Sunak, Zelenskyy – ritually slapped down in public. But Putin? He gets the red carpet. The brass bands. The fixed-smile photo-op. No ritual, no humiliation, no mockery.

Trump reserves his contempt for leaders who answer to voters. For autocrats, he rolls out the bunting. That isn’t strength – it’s submission dressed up as swagger.

The real humiliation isn’t theirs. It’s ours – the West reduced to background scenery while Trump plays lapdog to despots.