Trump cancels journey to U.K., attacks Obama
President’s tweet includes false jab at Barack Obama.
President cites unhappiness over new U.S. Embassy site, which was decided under G.W. Bush; British opponents say Trump took hint.
President Donald Trump’s cancellation of a visit to London to open a new U.S. Embassy was welcomed by his many critics in Britain on Friday, even as it deepened the diplomatic problems confronting a British government struggling to forge closer ties to Washington without offending opinion at home.
The decision averted the risk of public protests that had threatened to embarrass both Trump and Britain’s prime minister, Theresa May, who has recently squirmed to distance herself from statements made by a U.S. president seen by many Britons as deeply divisive.
The announcement, which came in a Twitter post by Trump that included a false jab at former President Barack Obama, is the latest reverberation from a hasty and ill-judged invitation made around a year ago, when Trump was offered, and accepted, a state visit to Britain. Such an honor is normally bestowed only much later in a presidency.
With Britain to leave the European Union in 2019, May hopes to negotiate a new trade agreement with the United States, and the state visit was partly seen as a way of cementing ties with Trump.
But while Britons may pride themselves on their “special relationship” with the United States, that does not appear to extend to its president, whose statements on a range of topics have provoked widespread anger in the country. A petition calling for the invitation to be withdrawn was signed by more than 1.8 million people and the issue was debated in Parliament.
Last year the U.S. ambassador to Britain, Woody Johnson, said that he hoped Trump would visit in early 2018 and dedicate the new embassy, providing the opportunity for a symbolically important, but lower-key, visit to a close ally.
No official statement had been made about the visit, and no formal invitation had been issued, although diplomats were known to be trying to organize a meeting, and the embassy opening was an obvious moment at which to do so.
Then, late Thursday night, the president took to his favorite medium, Twitter, and announced that he had scrapped his trip because he was unhappy with the new building, and the decision to quit the old site in central London, which has been taken over by the Qatari royal family’s property company, which plans to convert it into a luxury hotel.
His critics in Britain gave that explanation little credence. Ed Miliband, the former Labour Party leader, responded to Trump’s announcement on Twitter, saying: “Nope. It’s because nobody wanted you to come. And you got the message.”
The old U.S. Embassy, in a historic square in the exclusive Mayfair neighborhood, was deemed to be vulnerable to terrorist attacks. The new one, which includes a small moat, is a high-tech construction in a former rail yard on the South Bank of the Thames.
Though Trump blamed the Obama administration for the move, the first announcement of the new embassy site had been made in 2008 during the administration of President George W. Bush.
In response to Trump’s statement, Britain’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, accused the opposition Labour Party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan of having endangered the trans-Atlantic relationship.
But the furor illustrates the extent to which any potential visit by Trump to Britain has become politically polarizing, even as the country’s establishment grapples with the question of whether to invite the president to the wedding of Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle.