Pompeo takes on growing rift with Brexit Britain

LONDON: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visits London on Wednesday to salvage a post-brexit alliance with an old friend whose defiance on China and Iran underscores Washington's diplomatic isolation.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been touting the prospects of a big new trade deal with the United States that can fill the void of Britain's departure from the European Union on Friday.

But Pompeo's meetings with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and Johnson on Wednesday and Thursday threatens to become a damage limitation exercise for the "special relationship".

Pompeo had been doing his best to convince Johnson that allowing China's Huawei tech giant to help build Britain's next-generation 5G network introduced a long-term security threat.

Britain approved a limited but still important role for Huawei on Tuesday.

"The United States is disappointed by the UK'S decision," a senior administration official said in a terse statement.

And Johnson had been pushing Washington to send back the wife of a US diplomat who is using the cover of diplomatic immunity to avoid prosecution over the death of a teenager in a road accident in England last August.

The United States rejected Anne Sacoolas's extradition to Britain last week.

"We feel this amounts to a denial of justice," Raab said in response. "The UK would have acted differently if this had been a UK diplomat serving in the US."

Disagreements about Iran and a US prosecutor's complaint that Prince Andrew was stonewalling an FBI investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein only add to the layers of tensions.

Johnson might now simply be hoping "there are no precipitous statements from the US saying that's it, this love affair is at an end", said Ian Bond of London's Centre for European Reform.