This week in the saga

Thursday is the day the pause is supposed to start paying. At six in the morning the first trade deal since the board went up is announced with the oldest ally, on a speakerphone, in the Oval Office; seven minutes later he posts that the golden age is coming. That afternoon a conclave in Rome elects an American pope, which he treats as a national result. Saturday a war between two nuclear neighbours is stopped overnight and he announces the ceasefire himself before either capital does. Then Sunday, and the strangest post of the term: at half past two he tells the country that his next one will be the most important he has ever issued, and lets it sit there for four hours. What arrives at twenty past six is a wall of capitals about why a pill costs five times more here than in the country that made it, and an order signed at nine the next morning tying American prices to the lowest price anywhere on earth. It is the one thing all spring he does not have to ask anybody for, and the only one that helps a person who cannot afford something.