‘The fates, it seems, could not have chosen a worse time for Trump to meet May.’
Bernard Ingham
ONLY THE very Devil himself could have made a better job of fouling up President Donald Trump’s four-day visit to the UK from tomorrow.
He comes to an ally distracted by Brexit and its Government in deep trouble after the resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson, two of the trio with Liam Fox of Brexit Ministers, over the proposed EU departure terms.
We have it from the White House that Theresa May is a charisma-free zone.
Trump, we are told, has not warmed to her and it is even suggested that if we don’t spend more on defence than France – as if we didn’t already – French President Emmanuel Macron will become Trump’s favourite European.
But it won’t take many Nato summits after today’s in Brussels for Trump, like some of his predecessors who initially saw the Germans as Europe’s leading light, to admit the error of his ways – unless, of course, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is installed in No 10.
The fates, it seems, could not have chosen a worse time for Trump to meet May.
But that is not all. Corbyn’s Momentum supporters are stoking up the idea of a demonstration against the visit while the pathetic Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has sanctioned a baby Trump inflatable, nappy and all, to float over the capital. How juvenile can you get? I don’t remember demonstrations against state visits, as distinct from Trump’s official visit, by the murderous Nicolae Ceausescu from Romania in 1978 or by Vladimir Putin in 2003.
Nor do the Left seem to have objected to state visits by the presidents of Communist China over the years or by an array of despots.
But then our Marxists fear that Trump will leave the UK for Helsinki to give Putin the hard word about interference in the West just as, to rub it in, a woman dies from Kremlin-based Novichok poisoning in Salisbury.
I have known some strains in the Anglo-American relationship – notably over the Falklands, the US invasion of Grenada, the bombing of Gaddafi’s Tripoli and Ronald Reagan’s offer to give up nuclear weapons if the Soviets would do the same.
But the outlook never looked as bleak for the so-called special relationship because of the healing chemistry between Margaret Thatcher and Reagan.
May and Trump have not, it seems, caught fire.
It is claimed that the special relationship depends on such chemistry. It is certainly important but in practice what matters is self-interest.
And it is in neither Britain’s nor the US’s interest that Trump’s visit should go off the rails. The president is not everybody’s cup of tea. I shudder at the very thought of being his press secretary. It is impossible to present an orderly administration when its leader is so unpredictable, forever tweeting to the world and sacking aides at will.
But the fact is that Trump is the elected leader of the world’s greatest power.
He may not fit our template for the job, especially when he seemed to see nothing wrong in separating children from their mothers after crossing into the US until his womenfolk spoke out.
But he is president and we have to try to live with him and he with us. We are, as he will come to discover, his only reliable ally in Europe.
He will be charmed by the Queen and relaxed by golf on his courses north of the border, provided the Scottish Nationalists don’t turn as daft as Mayor Khan.
No doubt we shall come to hear Trump’s impressions of his the visit via Twitter but the essentials from it for the West are:
1. The UK’s recognition where we think Trump is right – by telling the Arabs they have to fight terrorism as well as the West and Europeans that they really must spend more on defending themselves; in standing up to the meddlesome Putin; in acknowledging the problems that flow from unmitigated immigration; and, yes, in warning protectionist nations or those that dump on world markets that they damage world trade, provided, of course, he does not unilaterally cause a trade war;
2. A demonstration, notwithstanding differences, that we both know which side our bread is buttered and will stick together;
3. Trump promising to sign up to a free trade treaty with an independent UK as soon as possible and to call on the EU to reform; and, not least
4. May and Trump pledging to defend democracy, resist Russian interference, fight terrorism and promote free trade.
Let the Devil be confounded.
The fact is that Trump is the elected leader of the world’s greatest power. He may not fit our template for the job. But he is president and we have to try to live with him and he with us.