Trump's Golden Dome missile shield will cost more than expected!!!

What surprises me is that anyone in Washington should be surprised that a congressional report claims Donald Trump's Golden Dome space-based anti-missile interceptor programme is going to cost, wait for it, $1.2 trillion instead of $175 billion. There is no such thing as an affordable missile shield aimed at preventing any or all missiles fired at your country from wherever. Ronald Reagan discovered that when he came up with his famous Star Wars project in the 1980s. He envisioned a total shield consisting of lasers and particle beams and goodness knows what sitting on platforms in space but it just ran ran ran out of money and was largely abandoned, although all the work done then will no doubt help the Trump Golden Dome concept. But it still won't be affordable. And the truth is that no system will be fullproof, so the word 'shield' is over-egging it. I'm sure Trump will pursue it and get Pete Hegseth to try and deliver the goods. But if at the end of the day the programme really will cost $1.2 trillion or possibly a lot more, then Congress might just dismiss it out of hand. The Pentagon has put forward a defence spending plan for next year of $1.5 trillion, a 40 per cent increase on last year's request. That's a seriously huge increase. But how much of that wil go towards the Golden Dome? I haven't managed to spot the answer yet. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS.

Trump will find it hard to outsmart Xi Zinping

Trump will want to come away from his trip to Beijing with a long list of successes. But if all he gets is a pledge by the Chinese leader Xi Zinping to buy more soya beans from American farmers - one of the things on his to-do list - then that will be a very small diplomatic achievement. Basically, what he wants is for Xi to say he will intervene with the Iranians to open the Strait of Hormuz, probably with the quid pro quo that the US lifts its blockade of Iranian ports. That would be good news indeed. In fact such an arrangement would make a lot of sense. The trouble is, Iran has geography on its side, and once the US warships have gone home, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will still be there and they can interfere with the Strait whenever they want. But if China backs the deal, then there might be a reasonable chance of it sticking, at least for the forseeable future. The Strait of Hormuz is the absolute key to this crisis. Trump hasn't got the combat manpower in the region to force open the strait, so a deal via Beijing will have to do. But Xi will want a lot in return, like a new arrangement for getting hold of US technology, a lifting of trade tariffs and, best of all, a softer line on Taiwan. Will Trump be prepared to offer such concessions in return for a guaranteed agreement over the strait? He will be tempted.

When Taiwan is raised Trump must remember to stick to the script

The question of Taiwan and Beijing's insistence that the the breakaway republic must be brought back into the Chinese fold has caused problems for previous US presidents. Sticking to the strict format of words to emphasis the American diplomatic approach towards Taiwan has been the crucial factor in developing relations with Beijing. The approach is called strategic ambiguity. In other words, the US agrees not to support Taiwan's battle for independence from Beijing but also does not back China's ambitions to reabsorb the island under its wing. President Joe Biden on four occasions forgot about the carefully drafted words and told questioning reporters that if China invaded Taiwan, the US military would rush to defend the Taiwanese. Each time officials had to clarify his response to point out that the US policy on Taiwan had not changed. Now Donald Trump is heading for Beijing for a two-day meeting with President Xi Zinping, and there are officials in Washington who are keeping their fingers crossed that the president doesn't change the wording of the script and say something that will give hope to Beijing that the US policy has altered. Like, for example, instead of saying that the US does not support Taiwanese independence he might tell Xi he, Trump, opposes Taiwan's independence. Only one word difference but it would be huge for Beijing. No one knows for sure what Trump might say. But there is a possibility he might think he could persuade Xi to urge Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in return for a change in the language over Taiwan. He probably won't but Trump has proved on numerous occasions that he is unpredictable, which is why US officials are so anxious about this summit between Trump and Xi.

Trump and Xi Zinping, two Big Guys

Iran has given its response to the latest US proposal to end the war but we don't yet know what it consists of. But will it give the one thing Donald Trump is desperate to hear: that Iran will not interfere in the Strait of Hormux and will allow international shipping to use the waterway free of charge? If so, then Trump will fly off to Beijing this coming week with a big smile on his face. He needs to be able to tell President Xi Zinping that the oil crisis is over. But I fear that Iran will have responded im a very different way which means Trump's crucial meeting with the Chinese leader on May 14 and 15 will go ahead on a bad footing for the American president. Trump needs to demonstrate to his Chinese counterpart that he has the power to control events and that the war with Iran is effectively over. Instead, he will have to admit to Xi that he hasn't yet found the solution to ending the war. This is likely to have an impact on the two days of talks which Trump would prefer to focus on trade and Taiwan and artificial intelligence. Trump had postponed the meeting with XI in order to have more time to sort out Iran. But Iran and the replaced regime have proved more resilient than expected, and now there is a very real possibility that the war could go on for many more months.

UFOs are back in the news

Amidst all the news about the war in Iran, the continued fighting in Ukraine, the cruise ship with some ghastly rat virus on board and everything else going wrong in this world, it is a relief to read more reports of UFOs courtesy of the Pentagon. Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon and intelligence services to make public all the decades of classified reports on Unidentified Flying Objects. Many reports have been published over the years, but this time Trump wants everything released to put paid to the con[piracy theory that the US government has been hiding aliens and has been concealing evidence of real alien spaceships. Judging by the latest report today there is nothing new to say. Lots of fun stuff but no confirmation that the objects spotted are being driven by little green or blue aliens. As one wonderful American astronomer said on an American TV news channel, if there are aliens around why are they just visiting the US, why aren't they going to other interesting countries, "like Bulgaria". UFOs are fun but generally there's some sort of explanation for these sightings. However, Barack Obama said the other day that he believed there probably were aliens on another planet but he had seen no evidence, and he was the president of the US for eight years.But let's have a look at whatever else the Pentagon has locked away. You just never know!

Can Iran ever be trusted?

Even if a deal is signed and sealed and the war is over, can Iran be trusted to abide by the agreement? Under its revolutionary regime, there is little incentive for the Iranian rulers to abide by anything agreed with the hated United States. One of the items being discussed apparently as part of a settlement is a promise by Iran not to build any more underground bunkers for uranium-enrichment production. But Iran is doing just that right now with its so-called Pickaxe Mountain facility south of the nuclear plant at Natanz. At this new complex which is still under construction, the bunkers are buried 2,000ft under granite, beyond even the biggest of America's bombs to reach. US satellites have spotted Iranian workers piling in concrete to make it the most invulnerable nuclear bunker they have ever built. Will this be dismantled under a deal with the US? If not, it will provide Iran with the perfect underground plant to continue enriching uranium to bomb-grade level. The nuclear issue, the mnost important one to address, is nowhere near being resolved. The talk at present is for a moratorium on enriching uranium beyond the acceptable 3.67 per cent which can be used for medical purposes. The deal will also have Iran agreeing in writing not to develop nuclear weapons. But they have already done the hard graft and are closer than they have ever been to producing a bomb. Obviously at present, with the US firepower in the region ready to strike, there has been no evidence of Iran trying to recover the 440 kilos of 60 per cent-enriched uranium lying buried in canisters at Isfahan and Natanz. If there is a peace deal, the contingency plan for US special forces to attempt to grab the uranium is off the books. That means, Iran's ambition to possess a nuclear bomb will never go away.

Peace is breaking out or is it?

One moment it's all over and the next it's back to the familiar threats about hitting Iran harder than ever. I don't believe for a minute that Donald Trump wants to start bombing Iran all over again. He is desperate - and more desperate than Iran - to find a settlement that he can sell as a victory. But there really isn't much of a smell of victory in the air. The best he can hope for is a mini deal leading to a bigger settlement at a later stage. This is now what appears to be happening. The leaked report to Axios that a one-page memorandum is close to being drawn up which states the main agreements so far, with a 30-day period to conclude the rest of the details, had everyone thinking there was at at last an agreement. But almost as soon as this memo was revealed, there was a warning from Tehran that nothing had been decided and that the so-called memo was just a wish list by the White House. This can't be the case. Trump wouldn't have stopped the operation to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz if he thought Iran wasn't interested in a deal. So, there is clearly something going on behind the scenes, with Pakistan acting as mediator. But now we're back to threats from Trump to Iran to sign or else. I hope the war has come to an end. But will it really be good news for Trump, something optimistic he can take to Beijing next week when he is due to meet with Xi Zinping? By the end of this week, we should know the answer.