Donald Trump says he would talk tough to EU over Brexit

Donald Trump says he would take a ‘tougher’ attitude towards Brexit negotiations than Theresa May is doing.

Donald Trump praised French President Emmanuel Macron in an interview with Piers Morgan for Britain’s ITV. Picture: Twitter

Donald Trump says he would take a “tougher” attitude towards Brexit negotiations than the approach now being used by British Prime Minister Theresa May.

“Would it be the way I negotiate? No, I wouldn’t negotiate it the way it’s (being) negotiated ... I would have had a different attitude,” the US President told journalist Piers Morgan in an interview broadcast on Britain’s ITV.

“I would have said that the EU is not cracked up to what it’s supposed to be.”

Britain is preparing to leave the EU in March next year. The negotiations have moved slowly and Mrs May’s cabinet seems divided over how to separate Britain from the 28-nation bloc.

Mr Trump expressed annoyance with EU trade policy: “We cannot get our product in. It’s very, very tough. And yet they send their product to us — no taxes, very little taxes.”

However, he praised French President Emmanuel Macron. “He’s a great guy,” he said. “His wife is fantastic. I like them a lot. You know, we had dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and everything was closed.”

Mr Trump said the US might not withdraw from the Paris climate accord if better terms were reached, partly because he likes Mr Macron.

He said he looked forward to visiting Britain, where he has been invited for a state visit to be hosted by the Queen, adding he did not care that some Britons want him to stay away.

Discussing the royal wedding that will feature a US bride, he said Britain’s Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle look like a “lovely couple” but he did not know if was invited to their May 19 nuptials.

Told that Ms Markle had called him a “divisive misogynist”, Mr Trump struck a friendly note: “Well, I still hope they’re happy.”

Mr Trump said he had “tremendous respect” for women but does not consider himself a feminist: “That would be, maybe, going too far.”

He admitted he tweets from bed, saying he needed social media to communicate with voters. “If I don’t have that form of communication, I can’t defend myself,” he said. “I get a lot of fake news, a lot of news that is very false or made up.”

Asked whether he was lying in bed with his phone thinking of how to wind people up, he said: “Well, perhaps sometimes in bed, perhaps sometimes at breakfast or lunch or whatever, but generally speaking during the early morning, or during the evening I can do whatever, but I am very busy during the day, very long hours. I am busy.

“I will sometimes just dictate out something really quickly and give it to one of my people to put it on.”

He even joked about his hair: “It’s hanging in, barely,” he said.

AP, Reuters