In a week of diplomatic frenzy, I’ve been thinking of the American diplomat. Whether veteran or novice, the career diplomat is traditionally the centre of attention, a magnet for counterparts seeking counsel and for governments looking for guidance. When I meet some US diplomats now, it doesn’t take much to pick up on the despair. They nod a lot but say little, avoiding having to comment on their president.

Justifying wrong-headed policies is part of the brief. But Donald Trump has imposed a whole new challenge: diplomats must explain his thinking where there sometimes is none, and make sense of policies when few are fully formed. The task is made more thankless in embassies around the world, where the president has named loyalists as ambassadors (that many posts remain empty is probably a blessing to staff). Diplomats working for Trump appointees must practice the art of controlling their new bosses’ undiplomatic instincts.

Take Richard Grenell, the US ambassador to Germany, who recently advised German business to get out of Iran as soon as his country pulled out of the nuclear deal, and later told an interviewer that he was planning to “empower” conservative political movements across Europe. He had to be reminded by his German colleagues that interference in the affairs of a close ally was not part of his job description.