John Micklethwait

Just on that, you've spent quite a lot of time, though, talking about a multipolar world and one where you've tried to, I suppose, bring together what might be described as a coalition of the willing, of kind of free-trading countries that would deepen ties and that would sort of get on with the business of globalization whilst America and China go about building walls of different sorts.

But that particular way, what can you do with that in practice?

You've accumulated a group of countries.

What can you actually do?

Is it just about having slightly better documentation and things?

What is the end of that?

I looked and saw the Future of Investment Trade Partnership, FITPI, as it's known.

The members include Brunei, Costa Rica, Chile, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Rwanda, Singapore, Switzerland, the UAE and Uruguay, which is a fantastic kind of World Cup group to be in.

It doesn't feel like the beginnings of a big trade bloc.

What about something you've already...

What about something you've already got, which is ASEAN?

And you are, next year, no, 2027, you take over the chairmanship of it.

And you look at ASEAN, as you say, it's been very successful at preventing conflict.

It's become a kind of grouping.

When you tried to negotiate with Trump as a group, he sort of pushed it aside and made you negotiate one with each other.

I wondered, is there a way of making ASEAN into something bigger, something deeper?

At the moment, it's based wholly around consensus.

Could you ever move to something like a majority agreement instead?

I hate to mention the words European Union in a good light, but if you were to take it...

a little bit closer to the European Union.