4. What assessment has the First Minister made of the impact that the result of the US presidential elections will have on the Welsh Government's international strategy? OQ55853

As our international strategy outlines, the USA is a priority relationship for Wales and is vitally important to our economy. I have written to both the President-elect and the Vice-President-elect to congratulate them on their victory and to convey our renewed commitment to forge even closer links based on shared values and mutual interests.

I thank the First Minister for that positive and constructive response. I'm sure, like me, he would welcome the fact that it looks as though we're going to have a proactive, engaged and constructive partner, now, willing to play its role on the global stage, including by rejoining the World Health Organization in dealing with the global pandemic and by recommitting to the Paris agreement and actually taking a full and active role in Conference of the Parties 26 coming up.

But could I ask the First Minister what does he think we can do even more on the diplomatic, the economic, the social, the cultural ties? And what will the US presidency bring us in terms of perhaps things that we're not thinking so much about, like the attitude to trade and EU relations being currently negotiated by the UK Government, and also the Belfast agreement, the peace process, which, we have to remember, colleagues of ours put a lot into over successive Governments, including our good friend Paul Murphy?

I thank Huw Irranca-Davies for that. I agree with him that the most striking advantage that we will see from a Biden presidency is the re-engagment of the United States in those huge international issues and organisations, which it used to be such a reliable partner in and has ceased to be so over the last few years. So, the fact that it will re-engage with the World Health Organization will mean that its ability and the world's ability to deal with coronavirus will be strengthened. The fact that it will not now turn its back on the Paris climate accord will be good news, not just for the United States but for the whole of the world. That is the most striking thing that I think you see, from outside the United States, as being to the benefit of us all.

We will use our international offices, of course, to continue to engage both in economic opportunities for Wales, cultural links between Wales and different parts of the United States, but also the political links that we need to build with the incoming administration. I think I said last week, Llywydd, that the Welsh caucus on Capitol Hill is to be reformed. My colleague the former First Minister visited the caucus, met people involved in it, and I look forward to the day when ministerial visits to different parts of the world, and particularly the United States, are available once again. Because that will allow us to take forward even faster the international strategy we debated last week, with the envoys that we have been able to appoint—two of them in the United States—and the diaspora that we know is there in the United States, willing to help us to keep Wales's profile high there and to engage on all that agenda that Huw Irranca-Davies set out in his supplementary question.

First Minister, last week marked World Kindness Day, and there are Members of your own party, you included, who've advocated a kinder politics. But kindness is not something that the left have given to Donald Trump during his time as President of the United States. Do you agree with me that no matter who the President of the United States is, it is important that Members of this Chamber, including those heckling on your back benches right now, must not make petty personal attacks that we've seen against people like Donald Trump over the past four years and should instead practise what they preach?

Well, I'd be able to provide a different sort of answer to the Member if I thought that the President to whom he referred for a moment took the advice that Darren Millar has offered. Eschewing petty personal attacks? Have you never seen the tweets that that man has poured out during the four years, and the vile abuse that he has heaped on the heads of people who disagree with him? And when he refers to kindness, I think of those 500 children who will now probably never see their parents again, and that was the direct cause of actions that that man insisted on in the United States. I won't use the word 'kindness' when I refer to the previous President of the United States while I still have those 500 children in my mind.