The “global rules-based order” is a yawn-inducing phrase but it means something important. All countries in the world, bar a few rogue states, deal with each other according to an agreed set of legal, economic and military rules.

Ignore or overturn them and confusion and conflict break out. Some non-western countries have long believed that the phrase is little more than a cloak for US global domination. Since America effectively wrote the rules, it was assumed that the whole system must be biased in favour of the US.

But Donald Trump does not see it that way. The US president thinks that clever foreigners have manipulated the international system, so that America now trades at a massive disadvantage and is forced to accept hostile rulings by international tribunals. When it comes to security, Mr Trump complains that America spends billions giving cheap protection to ungrateful allies. He is demanding change.