Even at the height of the Watergate scandal, Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s national security adviser, ran a serious foreign policy. The same was true of Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton’s secretary of state, during his impeachment hearings. By contrast, under Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump’s secretary of state, US diplomacy is missing in action.

Mr Tillerson is also serving a president besieged by scandal. The multiple Russia investigations are likely to intensify. But he still does not have a team in place and the empty State Department is taking a mounting toll on America’s global position.

Some of the absence is deliberate. Mr Trump has proposed to cut the State Department and USAID budget by almost 30 per cent, to $37bn — barely a 20th of the Pentagon’s budget. Even if Mr Trump’s proposal is “dead on arrival”, as one Republican senator described it, the message is unmistakable. America’s president does not value diplomacy.