Billionaire is set to become Trump’s UK ambassador
THE billionaire owner of an American football team was yesterday confirmed by Donald Trump as his choice to be the next US ambassador to Britain.
Robert ‘Woody’ Johnson, who owns the New York Jets and is heir to the Johnson & Johnson shampoo and baby powder empire, is one of America’s biggest Republican party fundraisers.
A fiscal conservative who has known the US president for many years, Mr Johnson, 70, initially backed Mr Trump’s bitter rival Jeb Bush in the Republican primaries. But he is expected to be far more
‘Close relationship with president’
supportive of the turbulent Trump administration than the current acting ambassador Lewis Lukens, who clashed with the president by praising London mayor Sadiq Khan for his strong leadership over the London Bridge terror attack.
Theresa May welcomed Mr Johnson’s nomination, which must be approved by Congress. ‘We are looking forward to working with the new US ambassador once that is confirmed,’ said a Downing Street spokesman.
‘His close personal relationship with the President shows the commitment of the administration to the special relationship between our two countries.’
Mr Johnson, who has no government experience, has business interests in the UK through a broadcasting business, Atlantic Radio, which he backs.
He also met George Osborne at Downing Street in 2015 to discuss the former Chancellor’s ambitions to set up a major league American football team in Britain. A deeply private and unassuming man, who one former friend said has a fear of being kidnapped, Mr Johnson shuns the limelight and strolls around New York unrecognised.
His lavish generosity, both in politics and in philanthropy, has earned him enviable connections on both sides of the Atlantic.
When he co-hosted a lavish London fundraising party for Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney in 2012, Mr Johnson persuaded Sir Evelyn de Rothschild and his American wife, Lynn, to give up their elegant Chelsea home as a venue for the event.
He was a guest at a lavish 70th birthday party for Lady Thatcher thrown in Washington by her foundation in 1995.
Mr Trump, who has yet to fill a string of diplomatic posts, hinted in January that he was going to give Mr Johnson the plum job of ambassador to what is known as the Court of St James’s. One of Mr Johnson’s priorities as ambassador will be helping to secure the US-UK relationship during the Brexit negotiations.
Although he has shied away from publicly discussing his own political views, he has a track record of backing Republicans with strong free market stances such as Mr Romney, Michael Bloomberg and George W Bush.
Mr Johnson’s family has been racked by tragedy. His eldest daughter, Casey, died aged 30 in 2010 after years of drug abuse after he had reportedly cut her off from the family fortune.
‘Special relationship’