Donald Trump’s UK visit: Second meeting with Theresa May, afternoon tea with the Queen
DONALD Trump’s incendiary UK trip saw the US President break protocol while with the Queen, after he made a spectacular political backflip.
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US President Donald Trump’s incendiary two-day visit to England kicked off with a barb about Brexit, finished with a spectacular political backflip - and will probably end up being remembered most for the giant orange-skinned baby blimplaunched into the sky above Westminster.
While more than 100,000 people took to the streets of London chanting “Trump is not welcome here” on Friday, nearly 40 kilometres away, the President and First Lady met and shook hands with the Queen, resplendent in sky blue frock and hat,at Windsor Castle.
Amidst chants of “Dump Trump”, “We are pro America, just anti Trump”, young and old, men, women and children, straight and gay, filled Trafalgar Square “to capacity”, Metropolitan Police said.
The atmosphere was amicable and peaceful: some wore rainbow coloured T-shirts depicting Mr Trump dressed as Mary Poppins although they were accompanied by the less kind chants of ‘Super-Callous-Fragile-Racist-Sexist-Nazi-PO-TUS’.
As the British capital filled with a sea of placards slamming Mr Trump’s policies on the separation of migrant children from their families and his behaviour toward women, the Queen smiled serenely as her American visitors inspected the the picture-postcard Coldstream guards and later retired inside for afternoon tea.
Mr Trump walked ahead of the 92-year-old while inspecting troops and did not bow when he met her — a couple of minor protocol breaches — but the meeting went smoothly.
The Trumps and the queen were scheduled to spend about 30 minutes getting acquainted over tea inside the castle. Britain’s national news agency said they spent 47 minutes together, 17 minutes longer than scheduled.
The organisers of the so-called ‘baby Trump’ at Parliament Square said they were hoping to ready the blimp to follow Mr Trump to Scotland. The project had been conceived to speak “a language the President understands: personal insult”.
Speaking earlier at a press conference after formal talks with Mrs May at Chequers, the British Prime Minister’s country residence, Mr Trump insisted the relationship between the two countries had reached “the highest level of special”.
His conciliatory comments shocked aides and the British and visiting American media as they came just hours after he publicly lambasted the British Prime Minister and her Brexit proposal while lavishing praise on her arch rival, Boris Johnson, in an interview published in the high circulation tabloid newspaper, The Sun.
“Fake news” he told the press conference: “I have a lot of respect for the Prime Minister. That story didn’t say the tremendous things I said about her,”
“I told The Sun this incredible woman is doing a great job. I got to know Theresa so much better this trip. Yesterday we had breakfast, lunch and dinner. She is doing a great job, Brexit is a tough job” he added.
Standing awkwardly side by side at a lectern with the graceful 18th century walls of Winston Churchill’s birthplace behind them, Mr Trump also retracted his earlier statement that the post-Brexit UK-US trade deal was “off”.
However, he admitted that he had indeed given Mrs May “a suggestion, not advice” on how to manage the EU negotiations but that this “might have been too brutal for her”.
Presumably, the British media, conjectured, he had told her to ‘just walk away’ if she didn’t get her own way.
Brexit is an “incredible opportunity”, he insisted, and “whatever the UK does after it leaves the EU is okay with me”.
Asked about his earlier public criticism of Mrs May and her Brexit negotiations, Mr Trump flat-out denied the comments, declaring it “fake news” despite The Sun publishing an audio recording of the interview proving he made the comments.
“I have a lot of respect for the Prime Minister. That story didn’t say all the tremendous things I said about her.”
While Mrs May studiously ignored Mr Trump’s tirade against her in The Sun, London’s high circulation afternoon/commuter newspaper, The Evening Standard – now edited by a former Tory Chancellor, George Osborne - ran a front page headline in its mid afternoon edition stating: ‘Fake News: We have a good relationship’ over a picture of the two leaders smiling uncomfortably.
And despite her stiff upper lip in the face of insult, Mrs May managed to firmly repudiate Mr Trump’s explosive comments that immigration has damaged the cultural fabric of Europe.
Asked about his views on the issue, Mr Trump said: “You have seen the damage done by terrorism. It is changing the culture. It is a very negative thing for Europe,” he said.
“It is not a very politically correct thing to say but it is not good for Europe, no good for the US either.”
Mrs May said the UK is proud of its immigration history and will continue to welcome people fleeing persecution and seeking new lives: “Immigration contributes to the economy and society overall. Immigration has been good for the UK,” she said.
“What is important is we have control of our borders and we can determine who comes to our country.”
As the London rally continued peaceably into the night, protesters in Glasgow quietly took over the baton from London and began preparations for their own demonstrations as Mr and Mrs Trump flew into Scotland.
The next leg of their trip has been described as a ‘private weekend’ and will unfold at the Hotel Trump Turnberry, a luxury golfing resort in the south west.
Here however, they will not meet the political leadership: the Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has decided to send her own protest message, tweeting she will spend her day leading a Pride march against homophobia.
While in the UK, Mr Trump said his greatest wish for the world is to rid it of nuclear weapons, saying he discussed the nuclear threat with a professor uncle when he was younger.
He said he wants a good relationship with countries such as China, North Korea and Russia and looked forward to talking to Vladimir Putin on Monday.
“It’s a good thing if the US gets on with countries like Russia and China, right. I want good relationships.”
Mr Trump did not flag that he will raise the nerve agent attacks in the UK with Mr Putin but insisted he would talk about Russian “meddling” in the election in the US, observing as an aside that he didn’t expect much and especially not an “I did it” confession.
“I will raise Syria, I will raise many things … I might not get very far but we will talk about a lot of things,” he said.
The most important gain of his visit to Europe, he said, was to secure an extra $34 billion in funding commitments for NATO.
“Where are you manners, Mr President?” tweeted Tory Minister for Higher Education, Sam Gyimah.
His colleague, Digital Minister, Margot James, said “No, Mr President @POTUS. Boris Johnson would make a terrible PM.”
However, an embattled Mrs May has steadfastly ignored the jibes, moving to placate US fears over her controversial Brexit plan and insisting she plans to “tear down” red tape and bureaucratic barriers to encourage business and economic growth.
Mr Trump and the First Lady arrived in London on Thursday delivered by the so-called “ring of steel”, a fleet of US Special Forces helicopters shadowed by two Osprey aircraft which can take off vertically.
The Presidential entourage landed in the grounds of Winfield House, the American Ambassador’s official residence in Regent’s Park which has been cordoned off by a two-metre-high security wall of steel mesh and concrete.
The President’s four-day itinerary in the UK had been carefully confined to various palaces and country estates, ensuring minimal contact with the public and protesters although Mr Trump insisted he was popular with Britons and unfazed by the demonstrations.
“I think they like me a lot in the UK. I think they agree with me on immigration … you saw what’s going in the world with immigration, I probably, at least partially, won an election because of immigration. I told them the EU have to be very careful because immigration is taking over Europe” he said.
Originally published as Donald Trump’s UK visit: Second meeting with Theresa May, afternoon tea with the Queen
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