The PM has made a conquest, but she must be wary of Trump’s close embrace

The success of Theresa May’s visit to Washington must be tempered with caution about the new president’s rhetoric

There were two remarkable points in last week’s events that, initially at least, got too little attention. One was that Theresa May’s speech got a more ecstatic reception from the Republican politicians gathered for their annual convocation than had Donald Trump’s oration earlier that day. And the other was that Mr Trump had made a significant qualification to his headline-grabbing remarks in a television interview about the use of torture.

First, the cheers and delighted applause which frequently erupted during Mrs May’s speech on Thursday: the British press had clearly been briefed to promote “no more Iraq wars” as the newsworthy theme, so that was the story that dominated initial reports. (In fact, Michael Fallon was already trimming that back on Friday morning.)

But there was larger story here. Not only did Mrs May warn the Trump administration against isolationism in the strongest moral terms – saying that America and Britain must lead the protection of political and economic freedom in the world if the West was not to be eclipsed – but she was addressing this call, as it were, over his head to the elders of his party. The big news is that they cheered and stood to applaud her with what appeared to be spontaneous approval.

Considering that Mr Trump had just delivered a quite stupendous electoral result for the Republicans, the lukewarm response to his first formal address to them made a particularly striking contrast with the stunning rapture which greeted Mrs May. What might this mean?

Her speech was a miracle, beautifully designed to flatter a proud American audience but obviously wary of looking, to the home market, as if she was pandering to a flaky new president. She did it by summoning up the most sacred ideals of the historic American mission and the most cherished Republican memories of the Thatcher-Reagan victory in the Cold War to plead the case for an America that would not retreat from its global role. Pointedly, she mentioned the threat to Eastern European countries which had been liberated from Soviet domination by that Thatcher-Reagan triumph but were now, since the annexation of Crimea, deeply anxious about Russia’s territorial ambitions.

With Putin, she warned, America must “engage but beware”. It was all done in diplomatically elegant terms but she could scarcely have been more explicit. What she was saying to the sensible Republicans who control Congress and understand America’s responsibilities was unmistakeable: get your reckless president under control. Did they get the message? It certainly sounded like it.

But how necessary will the warning be? That brings me to the other moment which, in the chaotic first week of Trump’s presidency, almost slipped beneath notice. God knows there was enough attention paid to the President’s statement that he personally believed that waterboarding (and worse) was an acceptable form of interrogation. He had insisted that methods now recognised as torture, and declared illegal under international law, “worked” and were ethically acceptable. But he also stated that he would accept the advice of his defence secretary, James Mattis, and his new CIA director, Mike Pompeo, on this matter – and both of them have publicly rejected a return to those practices.

Clearly, Mr Trump was aware of this. So what he was doing when he said what he said about what used to be called “enhanced interrogation” techniques was expressing his own personal opinion – which he immediately made clear would not become administration policy.

This was, in fact, nothing more than Mr Trump shooting his mouth off in a way that was ultimately irrelevant to the way government would actually be conducted. It was him saying to his supporters: “I’m still the same guy you voted for – even though a lot of the stuff I spouted during the campaign won’t happen because now I’ve hired some people who really know what they’re doing to run things.”

He then reiterated this with unambiguous clarity in a response to a hostile question at the joint press conference with Mrs May: General Mattis’s view will “override” his own, however strongly he still insisted that he held it. This time, everybody noticed. So Mrs May’s warning about the un-acceptableness of the Trump position on the use of torture will sound very pretty but it is beside the point.

The most senior Congressional Republicans, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, had already renounced Trump’s comments at the Philadelphia meeting before Mrs May had arrived. Torture is illegal, they said – and that was that. As Mr Trump would say, it’s “never gonna happen”.

Is this going to be the story of the Trump presidency? Will everybody learn to dismiss the motormouth, purely symbolic figure in the White House who will, after a time, become nothing more than a social media phenomenon: a parallel reality whose wild words make no difference to the real actions that are taken in his name? Could it be that the foreign offices and security agencies of the world have already quietly been given the word: ignore the tweets and the noise, they have nothing much to do with anything?

If they haven’t, how long is it likely to take for them to catch on? But even global complicity in this bizarre arrangement would be too dangerous. One day, somebody will take him at his word – and the consequences will be catastrophic.

In the meantime, there are more immediate risks, particularly for the people Mr Trump decides are his friends. He allowed himself to be chastened by Mrs May at the press conference when she made it forcefully clear that she had won an assurance from him that he was 100 per cent behind Nato. In return, she offered her support on the need for other members to share its burdens (meaning its costs) more fairly.

She also refused to bend on any softening of the sanctions on Russia, which actually caused the President to equivocate on how well he might, or might not, get along with Vladimir Putin. It was clear that she was not going to withdraw from her own red lines, however much she needed that trade deal.

But there is one trap which she could not evade: Mr Trump insisted on linking Brexit and his own presidency as if they were two identical phenomena.

This is, on a number of levels, quite wrong and contrary to Mrs May’s own analysis. She is determined to define Brexit as an internationalist, outward-looking move dedicated to the principles of free trade and cooperation with a sustainable European Union. Whereas the Trump presidency is built on nationalism, protectionism and a visceral dislike of all supranational federations.

She must not permit him to make common cause with what she presents as her enlightened drive for national self-determination. This is far too helpful to her enemies and could discredit her efforts to offer well-intentioned, open-handed negotiations with Brussels.

It is true, as she said – and he confirmed – at the press conference, that their political positions share something important: a belief that government must put the interests of ordinary working people first. Certainly, those who felt “left behind” (in Mrs May’s terminology) or “forgotten” (in Mr Trump’s) are responsible for both leaders arriving in their positions of power, but the reasons for those startling popular rebellions are not precisely the same. Nor are their remedies.

The problem with populist revolts is that it can be very difficult to interpret a cry of rage. Mrs May is going to have to hold on to her own definition with every ounce of resolve that she has.