The American people must rein in the worst of Donald Trump

World leaders seem to be at a loss about how to approach relations with US President Donald Trump, given his worrying positions and often bizarre behaviour towards politicians and the media, allies and enemies alike. Trump is not just challenging political convention to “shake things up”; he is testing the foundations of US democracy. That test has the potential to transform existing assumptions about the United States and its global role.

Trump was elected largely for one reason: a substantial share of US voters were fed up with the state of the economy and the politicians who had overseen it. Globalisation – the proliferation of flows of labour, goods, services, money, information and technology worldwide – seemed to be benefiting everyone except them.

These voters had a point. While globalisation, and the trade openness that underpins it, has the potential to enrich the entire global economy, so far the richest have captured a hugely disproportionate share of the gains. In the US, wages for the top 1 per cent of earners increased by 138 per cent from 1980 to 2013, while wages for the bottom 90 per cent grew by just 15 per cent.

Trump is wrong: corporate tax cuts aren’t the best way to boost the US economy

There is now a stark divide between the struggling workers of the so-called Rust Belt and the high-flying billionaires of Silicon Valley and Wall Street. The only people who emerged unscathed from the global economic crisis of 2008, it seemed, were those who caused it.