Trump says he talked trade with May, still plans to visit London
HAMBURG, Germany — A day after a closely watched meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, President Donald Trump on Saturday said he was working with Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain on a date to visit London, after the two held what he called “tremendous talks” on trade.
Trump met with May on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit conference of the world’s major economic powers in Hamburg. It was the final day of the gathering, where the differences between the United States and the other 19 nations on trade and climate change have been on vivid display, and protesters set fire to cars and looted in the streets of the German city the night before.
“Nothing’s easy,” Trump said of the gathering Saturday as he complimented its host, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who has been toiling to bridge the gap between the United States and other nations, for handling the challenge “so professionally.”
One prominent example was on climate change, where Merkel succeeded Saturday in brokering compromise language between the United States — which Trump has withdrawn from the Paris accord to reduce global carbon emissions — and the other 19 nations that will declare in the G-20 communiqué that the agreement is “irreversible.”
While Trump abhors multilateral trade agreements, he is enthusiastic about the bilateral sort. He said he and the British prime minister had developed a “very special” relationship and were at work on “a very powerful” trade agreement that could be completed “very, very quickly.”
It is not clear what the president meant about the timing, since the two sides cannot complete such an agreement until after Britain leaves the European Union, in March 2019 at the soonest, most experts say.
Amid speculation about whether Trump would visit London, since Mayor Sadiq Khan has asked him to stay away and there has been concern about huge protests should he appear, the president confirmed he still planned to visit.
“I will be going to London,” he told reporters.
Further details on the timing and circumstances of the visit were not immediately available. The White House and Downing Street had earlier dismissed news reports Trump was considering a quick visit to Britain on his way back to the United States from the G-20 meeting.
Also Saturday, U.S. officials said Trump would direct the State Department to steer $50 million from its foreign-aid budget to a new international public-private partnership his daughter Ivanka Trump helped create to aid midsize businesses run by women.
The partnership, the World Bank Group Facility for Women Entrepreneurship, aims to “help women in developing countries gain increased access to the finance, markets and networks necessary to start and grow a business,” a spokesman for Ivanka Trump said.