Trump backflips on trade threats after May meeting

Donald Trump has reassured Britain he would pursue a trade deal after Brexit despite earlier threats to kill off any such deal.

Donald Trump and Theresa May greet each other at Chequers. Picture: Getty Images

Donald Trump has reassured Britain he would pursue a US-UK trade deal after Brexit despite earlier threats to kill off any such deal.

“Whatever you do is OK with me, just make sure we can trade together, that's what matters,’’ the US President told Prime Minister Theresa May at the country residence of Chequers last night.

Mr Trump said he had been reassured by British officials and trade experts that it would be possible for a trade deal under Mrs May’s new Brexit plan that is the basis of negotiation with the EU.

Mr Trump said that Mrs May faced “complicated’’ negotiations and it was “not easy’’, but he said a strong and independent Britain, like the US, was “a blessing in the world’’.

Mrs May did not respond to questions about Mr Trump’s earlier criticism of her policies, and she insisted that Britain would pursue an ambitious UK-US deal that built on a British independent trade policy.

But in the smallest of rebukes to Mr Trump, Mrs May said it was the responsibility of both countries to ensure the trans­atlantic unity endured as it had been fundamental to the relationship of both countries.

Mr Trump complimented Mrs May, saying she was a tough negotiator and she “has left a lot of people in her wake. I would much rather have her as my friend than my enemy,’’ he said.

Mrs May had to put aside Mr Trump’s extraordinary criticism of her Brexit position and the promotion of her potential leadership rival, the former ­foreign secretary Boris Johnson, to discuss Britain’s future relationship with the US at the working lunch at Chequers before Mr Trump and first lady Melania Trump went to Windsor Castle to meet the Queen.

Mr Trump arrived in Britain for a four-day tour, delivering a series of broadsides at the very time he was being welcomed in the quasi state visit, including a lavish reception at the ancestral home of ­Winston Churchill.

Following in the footsteps of former US president Barack Obama, who told Britons they “would be at the back of the queue’’ if they voted for Brexit, Mr Trump earlier warned Mrs May that she may have killed off any chance of a US trade deal, after accusing her of ignoring his advice and killing off Brexit.

He had also waded into domestic politics, saying that Mr Johnson, a Brexiteer “would be a great prime minister. I think he has got what it takes’’ although he insisted he was not pitting one against the other.

Mr Trump told the mass tabloid newspaper The Sun he had significant and serious doubts about the prospective US-UK trade deal.

In the interview Mr Trump had said Mrs May’s attempts to maintain close ties with the EU would make a lucrative US trade deal very unlikely.

“If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK, so it will probably kill the deal,’’ Mr Trump told The Sun.

“If they do that, then their trade deal with the US will probably not be made.”

He later said he did not criticise Mrs May during the interview. He said he had said “very good things’’ about her that wasn’t included in the headlines of the interview.

Some of the Prime Minister’s political ­opponents were aghast at the her obsequious greeting ­offered to Mr Trump, starting with her offer of a hand up the red carpeted stairs of Blenheim Palace just as Mr Trump’s explosive interview that undermined her Brexit position was being printed.

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said: “I don’t trust her to stand up for our country when it comes to President Trump. She held his hand and walked up the steps of Blenheim. Melania doesn’t hold his hand, why does she (Mrs May) do it?’’

Former Labour home secretary Jacquie Smith said while it was OK for Mr Trump to make comments about political issues “it is not OK to say Boris Johnson will make a good prime minister; you don’t comment on another country’s ­internal set-up’’.

Mr Trump said he felt unwelcome in London, where a hot-air balloon of the President as a baby wearing a nappy and holding a mobile phone, was tethered in front of Big Ben — with the ­approval of the Labour politician and London Lord Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Mr Trump repeated his earlier criticism of Mr Khan, when he said the lord mayor had done a terrible job in London — blaming him for the rise in knife crimes in the capital and for doing “a bad job’’ on ­terrorism.

Mr Khan responded: “The UK, like in fact the US, has a long and rich history of the rights and the freedoms to protest, the freedom of speech, the freedom to ­assemble. Can you imagine if we limited freedom of speech because somebody’s feelings might be hurt?”