What is to be done about Donald Trump? At times, a lot of Conservatives were willing to forgive him. He had rescued us from the prospect of President Hillary and from Kamala Harris. He had overthrown Maduro. It seemed that Cuba was going the same way, while there were good reasons to prevent the Iranians from acquiring a bomb and there were signs that its regime too might be crumbling. Equally, the President was justified in telling the Europeans to spend more on defence.

Now everything is less clear. Venezuela is still a mess. It should be a well-run and prosperous country but Maduro's detention does not guarantee its future. As for Iran, we have scotched the snake, not killed it - and the Mullahs are more dangerous than Fleance. Cuba? There ought to be a phrase to describe a regime whose economy is falling apart, and many of its people are deeply unhappy yet afraid to say so. But there are enough pay and rations to placate the armed forces and the police. Perhaps repress-ocracy is the term we need. Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela under Chavez/Maduro, Iran: it is harder to deal with the repress-ocrats than we might hope.

Now Mr Trump is stirring up the Argentinians. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Argentina was becoming one of the richest countries in the world. There followed a hundred years of Peronism and misgovernment. Then came President Milei, who seemed determined to put everything right. This was not an easy task. A lot of poorer Argentinians had come to believe that they were benefitting from the current order. At least in the short term, reform would inevitably create losers as well as gainers. But Mr Milei pressed ahead.

There was of course the Falklands question. Obviously, no Argentinian politician who wanted to be elected - or even to survive - could declare that the claim was all nonsense and a mere distraction from the task of economic recovery. Mr Milei did indeed pay little more than lip-service to the matter, leaving it to the footballers. Then the Donald blunders in, when Milei has to worry about an up-coming election. We are still a long way from actual conflict, but Trump has created gratuitous instability in absolutely no-one's interest. It is only a couple of weeks ago that he talked about bombing Oman. We were rapidly assured that this was a joke. Well, he has a funny sense of humour. Oman is a vital Western ally in a difficult region. Ally? With Trump, alliance means sick jokes, political interference and chronic unreliability.

Over the years, the President has shown massive intellectual flaws. He tends to admire strong leaders - Xi and Putin - assuming that everyone just wants to do a deal, and make money out of it. He has no understanding of religion or nationalism as political forces, and little grasp of free trade. A chronic mercantilist, he seems to believe that if a foreigner makes a dollar in the USA, he must have stolen it from an American. Indeed, along with his views on inflation and democratic institutions, it could be argued that Trump himself has Peronist tendencies. The Americans are fortunate that their economy and institutions are robust enough to withstand him. The rest of us can only pray that this is also true of Nato.

On a lighter note, Mr Trump has now turned his attention to the grey wolf, which he accuses of killing American cattle. So he wants to withdraw the current protections. The environmentalists are protesting. Some of them would have us believe that these wolves are vegans. One suspects that there is exaggeration on both sides. I am reminded of a conversation in Arizona - God, more than fifty years ago. Hitch-hiking, I was picked up by a taciturn gum-chewing truck-driver. I believed that one should pay for the lift with chit-chat and talked away. A local paper was claiming that bald eagle numbers had fallen to a dangerously low level. I mentioned this. He spent about ten minutes chewing the cud before pronouncing. 'There's two kinds of animals, son. There's critters, what ye eat. And there's varmints, what ye shoot.' Clearly, he was not the chairman of the bald eagle preservation society. Today, a fellow with his views surely belongs in the Trumpian White House, as a speech-writer.

A few years later there was an amusing Senator called Steve Symms, who has recently died. He did at least one favour to the great Republic, defeating - retiring, in American parlance - Frank Church, a pestilential leftie. A role as surprising as it was inappropriate, Symms was once called on to mediate on the problem of coyote numbers. Farmers wanted to put a bounty on the creatures. Animal-lovers insisted that it should be a federal offence to give a coyote a filthy look. There was no prospect of agreement. Finally, in a hot room with straining tempers, an earnest elderly female thought that she could see a compromise. 'If the problem is coyote numbers, couldn't we invent a birth-control pill to put in their food?' That was too much for the Senator. 'Lady, the coyotes are eating our sheep, not fucking them.'

If only the Trump question were a mere matter of bawdry. August can be a dangerous month in which world wars can start or incubate. Although there has been no war this time, a lot of incubation is still taking place. There is no reliable birth-control pill for geopolitical crises.