Pick your peace deal venue,Camp David or the Kremlin

Donald Trump’s rapid fire of appointments to key posts in his new cabinet over the last few days suggests he is an old man in a hurry.

- MARK ALMOND

While he wants to shake things up at home, it is his foreign policy promises – or threats – of forcing a quick end to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East that not only raise hopes but also fears, not least among America’s allies.

Everyone remembers pictures of Trump pushing aside other leaders at his first NATO conference in 2017 so he could get into the centre of the picture. Then, allies feared that Trump was in awe of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.

While the Kremlin seems sceptical about how easy it will be for Putin to gull Trump or accept his peace plan (whatever it may be), Washington’s European partners are visibly alarmed by the US election result and scrambling to fix their future relations with Russia before the president-elect does a deal over their heads once he’s back in the White House.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz telephoned Putin on Friday. Ukraine’s president spoke scornfully about Berlin’s outreach to the Kremlin – but he was appreciative of Trump’s promise to stop the war soon and implicitly dismissive of Joe Biden’s strategy.