Trump has given us something to be thankful for

Donald Trump
Donald Trump

There are many American cultural imports that make their way across the pond, from the saccharine sweet Hallowe’en tricks and treats or Hallmark ‘holiday’ movies of uptight businesswomen falling in love with lumberjacks at Christmas, right through to the woke horrors that metastasized from US campuses to British ones.

But one of the best American traditions is one that barely registers here. Thanksgiving originated back in 1621, when the very much still-English settlers of Plymouth, Massachusetts gave thanks for a successful harvest with members of the Wampanoag tribe.

Presidents Washington and Adams would declare ‘thanksgivings’ usually after victories against the British — which might go some way to explain our general antipathy towards the whole idea — and President Lincoln later codified it in 1863 as a way to try to give the USA something around which it could cohere.

Today, our colonial cousins have a great deal to be thankful for. Their economic growth has been spectacular: by many metrics they are twice as rich as Europeans, and their poorest state, Mississippi, has a higher GDP per capita than the UK. On top of its bountiful existing gifts, it is also undervalued as a resource-rich land where huge deposits of critical new materials are discovered all the time. A few months ago, enormous amounts of gallium was discovered in Montana; massive lithium deposits in Nevada and California in recent weeks have raised hopes for lithium independence; and huge amounts of rare earth oxides were similarly confirmed in Wyoming just a few days ago.

Hand-in-hand with this natural cornucopia, the new administration has a huge mandate and control of all the major branches of federal government for at least the next few years.

As much as there are many here in Britain who might find Trump distasteful, I believe that we should be thankful for him, too. He is arguably the most pro-Britain President ever (his mother was born in Scotland, after all), and, according to people close to him I have spoken to recently, is as keen as mustard on a free trade deal with us.

More than that, his team will set an example to the world of how a modern nation state can (re)secure its borders, support business, restore national confidence and even make cutting wasteful spending radically popular.

This latter point, affected in no small part through the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (or ‘DOGE’ named after a niche internet meme), should be emulated here. A Ministry Of Good Governance, perhaps led by former MP Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, maybe?

Rather than turn back to an ailing and sclerotic Europe or return to the folly that is cosying up to China, we should embrace the economic, defence and cultural opportunities that the special relationship could provide. Regardless of whether we grasp that chance, our cousins across the sea will nevertheless continue setting the standard for the UK and Europe to follow, rather than be led astray by the turkey in No10. That’s something we should be thankful for.