Trump: Brexit to end UK trade

Donald Trump said Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal will make it difficult for the British prime minister to strike a trade deal with the U.S. after the U.K. leaves the European Union.

In an interview with Brexit Party Leader Nigel Farage on LBC Radio, the president said the two countries could “do much bigger numbers” if Johnson made a cleaner break with the EU.

“We want to do trade with the U.K. and they want to do trade with us,” Trump said. “Under certain aspects of the deal you can’t do it, you can’t trade, we can’t make a trade deal with the U.K. Under certain ways we’re precluded, which is ridiculous by the way.”

This is bad news for Johnson, who touts swift and lucrative commercial opportunities with the U.S. as one of the biggest prizes of Brexit. The prime minister renegotiated the divorce from the EU and is looking to win a Dec. 12 election convincingly enough to get Parliament to finally approve his Brexit.

Trump’s warning suggests that even if Johnson finally manages to get Brexit through, after more than three agonizing years of political wrangling, it won’t be as straightforward as he had hoped to get that “fantastic” trade deal with the world’s No. 1 economy.

The president, who prides himself as a deal maker, also indicated the U.S. will be in a strong position in talks. The prime minister “knows how difficult it is,” he said, “he’s looking very much at the United States.”

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour Party, said in a speech Thursday that Johnson wants to deliver a “one-sided Trump trade sell-out” in his rush to reach an agreement with Washington. “His toxic Brexit trade deal with Trump could hand over 500 million pounds a week of NHS money to big drugs corporations,” Corbyn told supporters.

Trump denied the claims, saying the U.S. is too busy with its own “health service problems” to get involved in the U.K.

“We won’t be involved with that, we’re trying to fix our health service,” Trump said. “It’s not for us to have anything to do with your health care system, we’re just talking about trade.”

He encouraged Farage’s Brexit Party to make a pact with Johnson for the preChristmas election: “He has a lot of respect and like for you,” Trump said. “I wish you two guys could get together, I think it would be a great thing.”