Ayoung European leader flies to Washington on an official visit. He is a modernizing charmer from the progressive wing of politics, articulate and comfortable with the media. He arrives to meet an American president whose politics are emphatically not his, and whose election has dismayed U.S. liberals, disrupted the transatlantic alliance and alienated European opinion. The new U.S. president is an American exceptionalist. He is no respecter of human rights and international institutions. But the European leader has decided to hug him close in the hope of influencing his decisions.…
More than a handshake
