My first meeting with Donald Trump was surprising, to say the least. It came in January 2019, a time when he was dealing with several international crises, among them Iran’s dangerous drive to become a nuclear weapons power. That was something which I had discussed during a TV interview shortly before I was invited to the White House to attend a round-table discussion on foreign policy. As I walked into the Roosevelt Room, close to the Oval Office, President Trump spotted me amongst the 20 or so people present and shook my hand. ‘Good job on the interview,’ he said before turning back to the task of leading the free world. It seemed remarkable that a man with so much on his mind should have taken the time not only to have caught my TV appearance in the first place, but then to mention it. As I quickly discovered, however, this extraordinary memory for names and faces, and ability to make people feel special, is part of the sharp intelligence and charisma of a man all too often vilified by his critics as a bull in a diplomatic china shop. Since he returned to the White House, he has stunned the world with his shock and awe tactics covering everything from imposing tariffs against Canada and Mexico to his plan to take over the Gaza Strip and turn it into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’. On Tuesday this week, he threw in a blood-curdling ‘last warning’ to the terror group Hamas to free all remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza, telling them that if they did not, ‘it is OVER for you’. Horrified headline writers worldwide screeched disapproval of his humiliation of Emmanuel Macron on his visit to the White House — failing to meet him at the front door and seating him at the side of the Oval Office desk, not to mention the unusual handshakes which were cited as examples of Trump one-upmanship. There was also widespread outrage at the AI video he re-posted on the social media site X, envisioning what a Gaza Strip resort town could look like if the Western investment he has talked about goes ahead, and featuring a gigantic, golden statue of Trump looming over tourists. He has come across as so unpredictable that he was recently denounced as ‘out of control’ by a Member of Congress. This is nonsense. His modus operandi is very deliberate, with a clear rationale behind it. By adopting the positions he does, he forces people to think outside the box and lays the ground for a deal. His address to a joint session of the United States Congress this week was a political tour de force, proclaiming ‘the dawn of the golden age of America’, ushering in a new conservative revolution at home while urging an end to the bloodiest war on European soil since World War Two. In his first 44 days in office, Trump’s presidency has secured the US border, declared war on both woke and waste within the federal government, withdrawn from the Net Zero insanity of the Paris Agreement, and has emphatically thrown down the gauntlet to the European Union over its decades of unfair protectionist measures against US exports. I’ve worked at the heart of the foreign policy world in Washington for more than 20 years and my experience as a competition chess player in my youth tempts me to compare him with the Grandmasters of the game, always thinking several steps ahead to ‘checkmate’ while others are still focused on shuffling around their knights and bishops. Take Ukraine. After observing Trump in the foreign policy meetings I attended during his first presidency, I am convinced that he wants to be remembered as a man who brings about peace. He genuinely believes that the war in Ukraine with its massive loss of life is a huge tragedy, thanks not least to bungling Joe Biden — who did nothing to stop the barbaric Russian invasion. That was a critically important mistake and then, when he did eventually provide support to Ukraine, it was at a point where the Russians had already gained a huge strategic advantage. While Biden, and Barack Obama before him, were cautious and conventional presidents, Trump never hesitates to get on with things and he has a clear vision both for ending the war and ensuring that Ukraine’s long-term security is guaranteed. He has already succeeded in galvanising a coalition of European allies who have agreed in principle to send troops to Ukraine if necessary — the UK and France among them. The recent visits to the White House by Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer — one of the least impressive British prime ministers in decades — were very much about that. During their admittedly successful meeting in the Oval Office, Starmer was effusive in his support for Trump’s efforts to secure a peace deal for Ukraine, acknowledging that no end for the war can be achieved without US leadership. That’s certainly true and Trump is ensuring that the US has a long-term stake in Ukraine as part of the deal that he is negotiating with Zelensky to develop Ukrainian rare earth mineral resources. The genius of this lies in his awareness that the Russians will not dare to launch future attacks on Ukraine while the US has economic interests there. That ‘checkmate’ depends, of course, on Vladimir Putin believing that Trump might hit back at any such invasion and we need to dispel the ridiculous notion that the president is somehow kowtowing to the Russian leader. Trump has managed against all odds to lure Putin to the negotiating table, just as Winston Churchill — of whom more later — had to work with Soviet tyrant Josef Stalin to bring an end to World War II. Let’s be clear. Putin is not viewed as some partner or potential friend of the United States. He’s a deeply unpleasant adversary and he knows that Trump is very capable of being extremely tough on Russia. We saw that in Syria in 2018, when pro-government forces led by Russian mercenaries launched an assault on a US base at the height of the campaign against ISIS and Trump ordered an airstrike response which killed some 200 to 300 attackers, including many Russians. So Trump doesn’t hold back when the Russians attack US interests. If he is provoked and prodded, they know he will retaliate very fast and he is the only man that Putin fears. Not Macron or Starmer. Just Trump. It’s no coincidence that Trump ordered the third anniversary of the start of the war to be marked by a B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber flying over the Baltic states, alongside F-35A stealth fighters and other US combat aircraft. This very significant show of force sent a clear message to Putin – don’t mess with Trump. As he knows, there’s a lot to be said for an America that’s feared rather than loved. And with the US’s allies, including President Zelensky, he is willing to be forceful and robust in order to get results. On the face of it, Trump’s strong language on Ukraine might seem objectionable to Europe’s elites. But this is all part of his power play. The tumultuous Trump/Zelensky White House confrontation last Friday reverberated across the world. But in its aftermath the Ukrainian leader looks poised to sign the proposed deal with the United States, move to the negotiating table and work towards ending the war without ceding any further Ukrainian sovereignty to the Russians. In addition, European leaders are finally serious about significantly raising defence spending, and ending their welfare state-style dependence upon the United States. Trump knows exactly what he’s doing in putting Zelensky under pressure. He’s knocking heads together to get results and, while people may not like his confrontational style, they should not confuse it with the impulsive recklessness of someone who speaks first and thinks later. During the policy round-tables at the White House I attended, I gained firsthand insight into how he likes to listen to a wide range of different views and opinions and takes a genuine interest in people’s advice. He then makes up his own mind, decisively and in ways which are often revolutionary, as with Gaza. He knows that the situation there has reached a critical juncture. Gaza is now a complete disaster case, a terrorist hornet’s nest and Trump is simply pointing out that conventional wisdom offers no solutions. While we don’t know yet the details of Trump’s Gaza plan, his idea of turning the territory into something that actually functions well and offers its people prosperity, rather than poverty, destruction and despair, surely makes complete sense. We should be grateful to Trump for daring to think outside the box and saying we need an alternative solution here. What the Middle East needs right now is hope and there’s no one more optimistic than Donald Trump. The same willingness to change the rules of the game was apparent in the speech given in Munich by Vice-President JD Vance. This very much reflected Trump’s view that if you want the US to be invested in the future of Europe’s defence through the NATO Alliance, Europe must stand for the same values America does: freedom of speech, secure borders, free markets. Trump has genuine concerns about Europe and Britain in particular. Let’s not forget that his mother was born in Scotland. We matter to him. And so does NATO. The alliance often came up in the meetings I attended and it was clear that, far from not caring about NATO, he wants to make it great again. As I said, his ‘tough love’ message has forced both Britain and France to announce significant increases in their defence budgets. Here, he is once again taking the longer view for behind this lies a concern for Western civilisation. Europe matters to the US because if Europe falls to the Left, or to Islamists, then that’s dangerous for America. And, with apologies for adopting chess terminology yet again, this forcing of Europe to get its act together shows that Trump is once again looking towards the end-game. Another charge often laid against him is that he is ignorant of international law, for example in recoiling against the International Criminal Court’s issue of a hugely political and utterly ludicrous arrest warrant against Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu for supposed war crimes. The truth is that Trump has a very strong understanding of international law and how it is wielded by foreign courts. It’s just that he doesn’t like it. He has an instinctive distrust of supranational courts and globalist elites constraining what the leaders, or indeed the citizens, of individual nation-states can do. He says things that no one else is willing to say and does them too, and that’s refreshing. Look at how he so successfully threatened Colombia with immediate trade tariffs if it refused to take back the drug dealers and other criminals deported as part of his crusade against illegal immigration. Colombian president Gustavo Petro caved instantly, as Trump knew he would. Who else but the Donald would have dared? He’s fearless in the same way as Winston Churchill, whose bust was removed from the Oval Office by Joe Biden but reinstated almost as soon as Trump moved back into the White House. While Biden and Obama, and numerous presidents before them, were endlessly swayed by opinion polls and focus groups, Churchill didn’t care what anyone thought, and neither does Trump. In part, this is because of his unconventional background. Unlike Biden, a cynical, career politician who always seemed to be somewhat ‘plastic’, Trump is very authentic. The ultimate outsider president, he doesn’t think like typical Washington politicians and, when you’re in the room with him, you know that he really believes what he’s saying. That, of course, is often controversial and has won him many enemies on the Left who mindlessly attack him as an unthinking bully. If they want to persist in that misguided view, then that is their prerogative but I would offer them one piece of advice. Hate Donald Trump all you like but underestimate him at your peril. Nile Gardiner is a former aide to Margaret Thatcher and lives in Washington