UPDATE 1500 GMT: An extract from my interview with Radio France International, focusing on Donald Trump, the G20, and the North Korean crisis:
As Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin move towards their first face-to-face meeting on Friday, I spoke with BBC Radio Coventry to cut through the noise and get to the important issues about — and beyond — the meeting.
I explain that, while a Trump speech gave US agencies space to express their concerns about Moscow, the President will be able to pursue his own agenda in today’s meeting, hailing his friendship with Putin — whose Kremlin helped Trump’s rise to the White House with its 2016 intervention.
Listen to Discussion
Given that the meeting risks being a diversion from matters such as climate change, migration and refugees, and economic interaction:
We can’t look to the US as a barometer for everything that is happening. The US, or at least the Trump Administration, is off to the side on many, many important issues….
It’s time that the rest of the world tries to work together and then reaches out to the US and Russia and says, “Work with us.”
See also TrumpWatch, Day 175: Trump Sees Putin — But What About the Rest of the World?
And in a provocative conclusion:
For a minority of Americans who support Trump, they’ll back him come hell or high water. For many others, and for many around the rest of the world, he’s not a “joke President”, he’s a dangerous President.
