TRUMP BACKTRACKS
DONALD Trump yesterday insisted the UK and the US have “the highest level of special” relationship.
But his declaration came hours after he had slammed Theresa May’s Brexit plan as a move that would kill off a trade deal between the countries.
Speaking alongside the under-pressure Tory leader at Chequers, Trump heaped praise on May not long after backing her arch-rival Boris Johnson for the Prime Minister’s job.
Backtracking from his own harsh words, President Trump said Brexit presented an “incredible opportunity” and told May “whatever you do is OK with me”. But he also urged her to “make sure we can trade together”.
He gave the assurance hours after humiliating the PM in a newspaper interview. May woke up to headline statements from the President that the UK-US trade deal was dead on arrival.
In comments deliberately pitched to push the Tories towards the hard Brexit favoured by Johnson and his allies, Trump waded in with a no-holds-barred interview warning that May’s current Brexit proposal “will probably kill the deal”.
But, landing at Chequers on his Marine One helicopter for talks with the PM, he brazenly claimed he’d “probably never developed a better relationship” with May.
He denounced the interview in the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun as “fake news”, although he accepted it was “generally fine”.
At a press conference in the grounds of Chequers, Trump turned on the charm, saying he had apologised to May for the tone of the article.
Yet, the more he praised her during the afternoon, the more obvious it was that he had buried her in the morning.
He claimed the interview – in which he saluted Johnson as having the right stuff to be PM – had missed out his positive comments about May, so amounted to “fake news”.
He told the world’s press: “This incredible woman is doing a fantastic job, a great job. She’s a very smart, very tough, very capable person and I’d much rather have her as my friend than my enemy.”
But Trump stood by comments he had made about how former foreign secretary Johnson, May’s arch-rival, would be a “great prime minister”.
He added: “He’s been very nice to me. He’s been saying very good things about me as president.
“I think he thinks I’m doing a great job. I am doing a great job, I can tell you, just in case you haven’t noticed.”
Standing in front of US and British flags, Trump said May “can’t walk away” from Brexit talks with the European Union but suggested she could use other methods to secure a good deal.
He said he had given her an idea about how to come out on top in the talks but “she found it
I’d much rather have her as my friend than my enemy DONALD TRUMP ON THERESA MAY
maybe too brutal”. The President teased on what that advice might be but it probably involved withholding the UK’s £39billion divorce bill.
He also stood by his explosive comments on immigration, warning that European leaders “better watch themselves” because immigration is “changing the culture” of their societies.
He said: “I think it has been very bad, for Europe ... I think what has happened is very tough. It’s a very tough situation – you see the same terror attacks that I do.”
However, May pushed back against Trump’s extremism and politely but clearly defended migration and the contribution it has made to Britain.
But, for the most part, she clung on to pat responses about Brexit and looked like a terrified fairground customer as Trump took reporters on a roller coaster ride of a press conference.
While he teased the British media sitting on one side of the aisle, he was involved in a verbal brawl with US reporters, refusing to take questions from CNN and denouncing the broadcaster from the podium.
He claimed he had forecast the outcome of the Brexit vote when he visited Scotland to officially reopen his Turnberry golf resort in 2016.
He said: “If you remember, I was opening Turnberry the day before Brexit.”
Recalling that visit, he said there had been “an unbelievably large number of reporters there”, adding: “They all showed up on the 9th hole, overlooking the ocean, and I said, ‘What’s going on?’ and all they wanted to talk about was Brexit.”
Surrounded by the trappings of power – from his Marine One helicopter to his secret service bodyguards – and behind a ring of British police, Trump exuded massive self-confidence.
He foresaw a great bilateral trade deal with the UK as easily possible and said nuclear proliferation will be a big issue in his talks with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin next week.
Trump said his dream was nuclear de-escalation, dropping hints he is not going into the meeting with “high expectations” but “surprising things” may come out of it.
Nothing was impossible, as he reminded reporters repeatedly of how accomplished he was on his own measure of success.
He said: “People accuse me of being pro-Russia. I don’t love Russia; I love America.”
Sterling shed 0.6 per cent against the dollar to trade at 1.31 following comments by Trump that a post-Brexit trade deal between Britain and the US could be dead.