Message delivered; was it received?

The US leader has not been very happy to be seen as an outlier among the other leaders attending the G7 summit in Biarritz, France, mainly because of his different stance on issues such as the Iran nuclear deal and climate change, which have made it impossible for the world's major industrialized countries to unite around common goals.

But then he prefers to talk rather than listen, and he has hitherto paid little heed to complaints that the trade war he has launched against China is aggravating the woes of other countries.

The European economy faces dim prospects, with Germany already on the brink of a recession after its economy declined in the second quarter, and a possible no-deal Brexit set to bring even more chaos. The trade war between China and the United States has only worsened the situation.