Trump in the UK: What now for the ‘special relationship’?
Trump’s visit to Britain highlights growing gap between US and UK, and the continuing Brexit woes of May’s government.
In retrospect, British Prime Minister Theresa May might wonder whether this was really the best week for a visit from Donald Trump.
Arriving straight from a NATO summit that was predictably contentious, the US president has been greeted with massive protests on his first trip to London since taking office.
And as May struggles to hold her own government together, with the never-ending arguments about Brexit negotiations threatening to tear her Conservative party apart.
Only hours after arriving, Trump made the prime minister’s life even more difficult, with scathing criticism of her in a newspaper interview.
And he went out of his way to talk up one of her main rivals, Boris Johnson, who resigned earlier this week as foreign secretary.
Trump said May’s in trouble because she ignored his advice on both Brexit and migration, and he thinks Johnson would make a great prime minister.
Aside from being an epic breach of both diplomatic protocol and simple manners, Trump’s interview brought other questions into sharp relief: can May survive if Brexit no longer holds the promise of a separate trade agreement with the United States?
Can NATO survive the additional strain of a rift between its two top military contributors?
And, what about the so-called special relationship that supposedly links the British and American governments?
Presenter: Hashem Ahelbarra
Guests:
Ian Dunt – editor, Politics.co.uk
Inderjeet Parmar – professor of International Politics, City University of London
Robert Hunter – former US ambassador to NATO