Hello my name is David Ranzerman and this is Talking Politics. Donald Trump is on his

Asian tour and we are going to dip our toes back into the world of Trump, the Russian

investigation, what's going on there, but this week has also seen another huge dump

of information about tax avoidance, the paradise papers, and there's a link there with Trump

too. We're going to trample some of these pieces together. Talking Politics is brought to you

in partnership with the London Review of Books, Europe's leading magazine of books and ideas.

We've already had some LRB writers on this podcast, John Lanchister, Mary Beard, and we hope to have

some more soon talking about the state of democracy and the state of the world. As well as Politics,

the LRB has book reviews, essays about art, poetry, and exhibitions. Whether you want to get a

deeper understanding of world events or just get away from it all and read about Picasso and

optimises, the LRB will have something fascinating for you. I'm joined today by Helen Thompson,

who is going to make the link for us later from Trump to Saudi Arabia.

I'm a Gatsby Jacket Spat. I know you're going to.

Aaron Rapport, who is here to tell us about American foreign policy and a lot of other things too.

I call it my major DJecate, but I go with Gatsby Jacket Spattern. It's a pleasure to welcome

back Andrew Preston, historian of the United States, and we are going to try and piece together the

Trump story. But before that, early this morning I recorded a conversation with Jason Charman

about the Paradise Papers. Jason is professor of international relations here in Cambridge. He also

happens to be one of the world's leading experts on tax havens and how they work. He knows this

stuff inside out, and I started by asking him, was he surprised by anything in these revelations?

No. In some ways it's surprising that things that inherently that interesting, like Bono's ownership

or part-h ownership of a shopping mall in Lithuania are now regarded as news. I think certainly

...