Donald Trump to meet Theresa May amid Brexit 'turmoil'
1 hour ago
US President Donald Trump will meet Theresa May later as she
pushes for a post-Brexit trade deal just days after he said the UK was in
"turmoil".
Mr Trump, who arrives in the UK this afternoon for a two-day
working visit - his first since his election in 2016 - will also spend time
with the Queen.
Extra security has been put in place as large-scale protests
are expected.
His visit comes as Mrs May publishes a White Paper setting
out a blueprint for the UK's relations with the EU.
Earlier this week Mr Trump said it was "up to the
people" whether the PM stayed on after two cabinet ministers resigned
within hours over her Brexit policy.
Mr Trump said he had "always liked" Boris Johnson,
who quit as foreign secretary.
BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins described the
trip as "the most controversial visit ever made by an American president
to Britain".
Robbins said it was also "really noticeable that he
will barely spend any time in London" - perhaps to avoid the protests.
Mr Trump and his wife Melania will attend a dinner at
Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire
Mrs May said the visit will be an opportunity to boost trade
links and strengthen co-operation on security.
But she also warned Mr Trump not to ignore the "malign
behaviour" of Russia when he meets Vladimir Putin in Helsinki next week.
Mr Trump had joked earlier this week that his meeting with
the Russian leader "may be the easiest" part of his European trip.
Along with trade and security links, Downing Street said the
other key areas to be discussed between the two leaders included Brexit and the
Middle East.
Ahead of Mr Trump's visit, Mrs May said: "As two
nations - we are safer, more prosperous and more creative when we work together
and I am looking forward to this week's important discussions."
She said that when the UK leaves the European Union
"there will be no alliance more important in the years ahead".
Downing Street insisted Mrs May welcomed Mr Trump's decision
to "engage" with the Russian leader in the Finnish capital on Monday.
However No 10 also made clear that she expected him to raise
issues like the Salisbury nerve agent attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and
his daughter, Yulia.
Mrs May said: "Our long term objective remains a
constructive relationship with Moscow. If we are to be successful in this we
must keep engaging individually and as an alliance.
"That is why I welcome President Trump's forthcoming
meeting with President Putin - open channels of communication between the US
and Russia are key to managing the risks of confrontation."
Mr Trump will arrive in the UK with his wife Melania on
Thursday afternoon, following the Nato summit.
The couple will attend a dinner, hosted by Mrs May, at
Blenheim Palace - the ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill - on Thursday
evening.
Cabinet members, including Chancellor Philip Hammond and the
new foreign secretary, Mr Hunt, as well as business leaders, will be among the
guests.
On Friday, Mrs May and Mr Trump will go to to watch a joint
counter-terrorism exercise by British and US special forces at a military base.
The pair will then travel to Chequers - the PM's country
residence in Buckinghamshire - for talks with the foreign secretary.
The president and first lady will travel to Windsor on
Friday afternoon to meet the Queen, before flying to Scotland to spend the
weekend at Mr Trump's Turnberry golf resort. This part of the visit is being
considered private.
The president will stay at Winfield House, US ambassador
Woody Johnson's London residence, on Thursday night
The Police Federation has warned the visit will put
"unquestionable pressure" on UK police forces.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to protest against
the president in London on Thursday and Friday - and in Glasgow on Saturday.
Police forces from across the country have been asked to
send officers to assist the Metropolitan Police.
Smaller demonstrations are also expected to be held across
the UK, including Devon, Dundee, Edinburgh, Belfast, Norwich, Manchester, Leeds
and Liverpool.
Meanwhile, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has granted permission
for a giant inflatable figure depicting Mr Trump as a baby to fly over
Westminster for two hours on the second day of the president's visit.
Theresa May nervously awaits Donald Trump's UK arrival
President’s visit will be heavy on flattery and pomp, and
tailored to avoid protesters
Peter Walker and Vikram Dodd
Wed 11 Jul 2018 22.30 BST Last modified on Thu 12 Jul 2018
07.48 BST
The protests have already begun, police leave has been
cancelled, while the prime minister and her foreign secretary are nervously
preparing for any potential mishaps, gaffes or insults: Donald Trump is finally
arriving in the UK.
The US president’s plane touches down on Thursday lunchtime
for a four-day visit sandwiched between the Nato summit and his trip to
Helsinki to meet Vladimir Putin. Theresa May is fervently hoping her welcome
will keep Trump’s loyalties focused on the former.
May has staked considerable political capital on maintaining
close ties to the often capricious US president, meaning she and Jeremy Hunt,
three days into his job as foreign secretary, will be praying he can remain on
message.
Before the visit, May lavished praise on the transatlantic
relationship, while notably avoiding any direct mention of Trump himself.
“There is no stronger alliance than that of our special
relationship with the US and there will be no alliance more important in the
years ahead,” May said, adding that she was “looking forward to this week’s
important discussions”.
It is officially a working trip, announced in April after
plans for a full state visit were indefinitely shelved amid concerns about
protests. But May and her ministers still hope to flatter Trump with pomp and
royalty.
On Thursday evening at a black-tie business leaders’ dinner
at Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill, Trump will be greeted
by military bands and piped out at the end by the Royal Regiment of Scotland.
The next day, following a joint counter-terrorism
demonstration by UK and US special forces and talks with May at Chequers, Trump
and his wife, Melania, will have tea with the Queen at Windsor Castle, this
time serenaded by the band of the Coldstream Guards.
Even the various menus announced in advance are heavily
tailored to Trump’s nursery-food tastes, featuring unthreatening dishes such as
beef, and hearty puddings of ice cream or lemon meringue pie.
The visit – which will see Trump depart for Scotland on
Friday evening for a weekend expected to be largely taken up with playing golf
at one of his own courses – has also been shaped to keep him away from expected
mass protests.
These had already begun in Scotland on Wednesday, with
activists from an anti-racism group staging a brief demonstration at Trump’s
Turnberry course in South Ayrshire.
Big crowds are expected in London on Friday, when the giant
“Trump baby” balloon caricaturing the president as a nappy-wearing,
phone-clutching infant, will be hoisted above Westminster.
'Fragile, like the president's ego': Trump Baby blimp
prepares for takeoff
Policing the visit will cost a minimum of £12m, with leave
for thousands of officers cancelled, a particular strain for forces on alert
for possible disorder amid England’s World Cup campaign.
Around 4,000 officers will be drafted into areas Trump is
visiting, the biggest mobilisation since the 2011 riots across England. The
National Police Chiefs’ Council has urged the public to avoid putting any extra
strain on officers, many of whom will work 12-hour shifts.
Police have also secured a temporary ban on low-flying
aircraft from parts of the UK being visited by Trump, for security reasons.
One of the obstacles to a state visit had been objections to
Trump addressing parliament, a traditional element of such trips, including a
controversial ban by the Commons Speaker, John Bercow.
However, some MPs will be presenting another view. Rightwing
thinktank the Bow Group has organised a welcome event for Trump on Thursday in
parliament, even though the president will get no nearer than the US
ambassador’s residence, four miles to the north in Regent’s Park.
Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski, who will join Nigel
Farage and others at the event, said he hoped it would be a counter to the
“very easy and very populist” denigration of Trump by Labour and others.
“I don’t know the man, I’m not commenting on his personality
or him as an individual,” he said. “I’m interested in his position representing
our closest ally.
“Turning somebody away and being deliberately antagonistic
to them isn’t the best way of trying to influence their decisions.”
Trump at NATO: From ‘sad’ to ‘tremendous’
US president hits out at Germany before taking a softer tone
when talking with Angela Merkel.
By DAVID M.
HERSZENHORN 7/11/18, 6:50 PM
CET Updated 7/11/18, 9:01 PM CET
U.S. President Donald Trump (L) and British Prime Minister
Theresa May attend the opening ceremony at the 2018 NATO Summit at NATO
headquarters on July 11, 2018 in Brussels, Belgium | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Donald Trump threw a tantrum at breakfast — railing against
Germany — but by afternoon he seemed to have gotten it out of his system.
Trump used the NATO leaders’ summit in Brussels Wednesday to
reiterate his demand for higher military spending by allies — suggesting that
even the 2 percent of GDP goal set by allies for 2024 was not sufficient and
that 4 percent would be a better target.
Trump’s tone during the formal meeting around the large oval
table at NATO headquarters was strikingly different from the tirade against
Germany he unleashed at a breakfast with Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
At the breakfast, Trump declared that Germany is “totally
controlled by Russia” and lashed out at the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas
pipeline project.
“I think it’s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and
gas deal with Russia, where you’re supposed to be guarding against Russia, and
Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia,”
Trump said in his opening remarks at the breakfast, which were broadcast live
on television.
“So, we’re protecting Germany, we’re protecting France,
we’re protecting all of these countries. And then numerous of the countries go
out and make a pipeline deal with Russia where they’re paying billions of
dollars into the coffers of Russia,” Trump continued. “And I think that’s very
inappropriate.”
But in the meeting, the U.S. president was not as combative.
“Today he was very conciliatory,” Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė told
POLITICO. “Around the table everything was fine.”
Asked about his take-down of Germany at breakfast,
Grybauskaitė said, “Yeah, but it is outside the room.”
It may have helped that Trump didn’t spend a whole lot of
time in the room. Participants said the combustible American president left the
meeting, in what is known as Room 1, after listening to just a few of the
interventions by fellow leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and
French President Emmanuel Macron.
He ducked out as Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte was
speaking, participants said, leaving the American NATO ambassador, Kay Bailey
Hutchison, in his place. Trump then held one-on-one meetings with Merkel and
Macron, but he did not return to the meeting, unlike Merkel who went back to
listen to the remainder of leaders’ statements.
NATO officials said it was not uncommon for leaders to step
out for private meetings.
In an almost surreal turn, Trump appeared with Merkel and
told reporters that relations with Germany were “tremendous.”
“We’re having a great meeting,” Trump said. “We’re
discussing military expenditure, we’re talking about trade. We have a very,
very good relationship with the chancellor, we have a tremendous relationship
with Germany.”
Noting Germany’s “tremendous success,” Trump added: “I
believe that our trade will increase and lots of other things will increase but
we’ll see what happens.”
The president’s comments were a remarkable turn after his
criticisms of Germany effectively upended the NATO summit even before it
started.
Trump’s morning remarks appeared to stun Stoltenberg, who
had been working hard to convince Trump that NATO allies are responding to the
U.S. president’s repeated demands for increased military spending.
And his comments drew a cascade of criticism and rebuke,
including from former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who issued a
statement saying, “I have never seen a president say anything as strange or as
counter-productive as President Trump’s harangue against NATO and Germany.”
John Kerry
✔
@JohnKerry
My thoughts on
President Trump's remarks in Brussels this morning:
5:23 PM - Jul 11, 2018
But following the pattern of his behavior at the recent G7
summit in Quebec, Trump’s pre-emptive fire-breathing gave way to a gentler
approach once he came face-to-face with his foreign colleagues.
By the end of Wednesday afternoon’s meeting, Trump joined
his fellow NATO leaders in approving an official communique that calls for
establishing two new NATO commands, as well as for all allies to continue
working to increase spending.
Stoltenberg, at a news conference, confronted the Trump
factor head-on and said that the ultimate outcome was positive. “We do have
disagreements,” he said. “But most importantly we have decisions that are
pushing the alliance forward and making us stronger.”
The two-day NATO summit is just Trump’s first stop on a
high-stakes swing through Europe, which will continue with a visit to the U.K.
Friday and a one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in
Helsinki, Finland, on Monday.
With the upcoming Putin meeting as a backdrop, Trump’s
criticism of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline may have been intended to dispel
any suggestion that he is cozier with the Kremlin than other leaders. But his
criticism of Germany in many ways defied reality, as Merkel has often been the
most forceful Western leader in confronting Putin about his military
interventions in Ukraine and Syria.
Trump’s outburst at breakfast seemed to surprise not only
Stoltenberg but top aides sitting beside him, including Hutchison.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (L), U.S. President
Donald Trump (R), NATO Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and
Security Policy Alejandro Alvargonzalez (2L), NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu
(3L) and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly (3R) and U.S. Ambassador to NATO
Kay Bailey Hutchison (2R) speak at a breakfast meeting at the US chief of
mission’s residence in Brussels on July 11, 2018 | Brendan Smialowski /AFP via
Getty Images
Trump also repeated his criticism of Germany’s failure to
meet the NATO spending target.
Merkel later hit back at Trump’s criticism, reminding him
that she had experienced Soviet occupation herself.
“Because of given circumstances I want to point out one
thing: I experienced the Soviet occupation of one part of Germany myself. It is
good that we are independent today,” said Merkel, who grew up in East Germany.
Shaky start
Trump’s tirade against Germany — the biggest and richest
NATO ally after the United States — kicked off the two-day congress of NATO
heads of state and government with a combative and deeply negative tone, with
the president harping on one of the most deeply divisive issues among NATO
allies and within the European Union.
In recent days, European Council President Donald Tusk
repeated his own criticism and opposition to the Nord Stream 2 project, which
Germany and other supporters, including Putin, have defended as a commercial
project with no political subtext.
”My personal view on this matter is, I hope, well-known:
Nord Stream 2 is a mistake and will not serve the best European interests. It
is against our strategic interests, our security, also our rules,” Tusk said at
a news conference with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Wednesday
morning.
Trump, in his remarks, called out Gerhard Schröder,
Germany’s former chancellor, for his involvement in the pipeline project.
“It should have never been allowed to have happened,” Trump
said. “But Germany is totally controlled by Russia. Because they’ll be getting
60 to 70 percent of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline … I think it’s
a very bad thing for NATO and I don’t think it should have happened, and I
think we have to talk to Germany about it.”
“Germany is just paying a little bit over 1 percent, while
the US is paying 4.2 percent in actual numbers of a much larger GDP” — Donald
Trump
The Nord Stream 2 project — a planned gas pipeline from
Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea that is meant to add 55 billion cubic
meters of gas to the existing route — has provoked pushback from Central and
Eastern Europe, as well as the European Commission, over concerns that it would
tighten Russian-owned Gazprom’s grip on a region traditionally highly dependent
on Russian gas.
Brussels worries that the new pipeline would give Gazprom a
stronger position in the EU’s gas market, undermining the Commission’s energy
union project, which is aimed at diversifying the bloc’s gas supplies and
cutting reliance on Russia.
The issue is one on which “allies disagree,” Stoltenberg
acknowledged. But he reminded the president that “despite differences,” NATO is
about uniting around “to protect and defend each other.”
In attacking Germany over the gas pipeline project, Trump
was also making a potentially dangerous link between security and defense
issues and economic disputes. Before leaving Washington on Tuesday, Trump
criticized NATO and EU allies simultaneously over military spending and on
trade.
Stoltenberg, in particular, has sought to separate those two
issues, in a bid to keep the alliance unified in its military mission and to
protect it from the much more complex trade discussion.
At the opening breakfast, Trump also repeated his criticism
of Germany’s failure to meet the NATO spending target. At a 2014 NATO summit,
leaders had agreed to work “toward” the 2 percent goal by 2024.
“Germany is just paying a little bit over 1 percent, while
the US is paying 4.2 percent in actual numbers of a much larger GDP,” Trump
said.
Trump has made a special target of Germany in the weeks and
months leading up to the NATO summit, including by questioning whether the U.S.
should maintain its military presence in Germany — where more than 30,000
personnel are stationed. The U.S. European and African military commands are
located in Germany.
U.S. military officials, and German officials, have sought
to tamp down any concern that Trump will actually make any dramatic change in
the U.S. force posture in Germany, which NATO and European military commanders
view as crucial.
Jacopo Barigazzi, Michael Crowley, Philip Kaleta, Tom
McTague and Paul Taylor contributed to this report.
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