Isolationism is a huge threat to global peace and security. This is one of the reasons why the change of regime in Washington is good news everywhere. Donald Trump’s populist appeal, summed up in the slogans “America First” and “Make America Great Again”, was a doomed effort by the United States to go it alone on a host of burning issues that, in truth, no country can solve on its own. This is why the emergence of a new international framework, a triangle of forces consisting of the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States, could bring major benefits.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols drew attention this week to the other pandemic sweeping across the globe: human trafficking. The network he heads, the Santa Marta Group, is faced with an explosion in trafficking arising from the increase in poverty and instability connected to the coronavirus pandemic. This other pandemic, in the literal sense, also knows nothing of international frontiers. It similarly requires unprecedented levels of cooperation between governments if it is to be brought under control.