Only minutes into his trip to the UK, President Trump had already lobbed a number of political grenades into a nation not exactly settled at the moment.
As Air Force One touched down, Trump opened his state visit by calling popular London Mayor Sadiq Khan a "stone cold loser." This will do nothing for his popularity among Brits, which -- under ordinary circumstances -- shouldn't matter to a visiting US President.
But these are not ordinary circumstances, and Trump is not an ordinary President.
The UK is currently engulfed in its most significant political crisis since World War II. Theresa May is standing down as Prime Minister after almost three years of failing to deliver Brexit.
Over the weekend, Donald Trump all but endorsed the man most likely to replace her, former Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson.
"I think Boris would do a very good job," the President told The Sun newspaper. "I think he would be excellent."
Johnson formally launched his leadership campaign earlier today. Fully aware of how unpopular Trump is with the very moderates whose backing Johnson needs if he is to achieve his dream, the former Foreign Secretary will probably not have welcomed the support of a man he is already unflatteringly compared to.
Trump also, in an apparent show of support for the UK over Brexit, said that if the UK doesn't get the deal it wants the EU, then it should walk away from the Brexit talks, taking with it the $50bn divorce bill already agreed with Europe.
His logic is that the EU will come begging when it realizes that it will miss out on all this money, but Trump has once again misunderstood the true power dynamic here.
While $50bn is a huge sum of money, it pales in comparison to the economic effect a worst-case-scenario Brexit would have on the UK.
There are fights to be had with the EU, but this probably isn't one of them.
Finally, he suggested that his "friend" Nigel Farage, the hard Brexiteer and semi-permanent thorn in the government's side, should be sent to Brussels to negotiate with the EU.
This would be the quickest way to collapse negotiations.
Believe it or not, the EU officials liked May and were impressed with how hard she squeezed the EU for her Brexit deal. They would be very unimpressed with a man who they believe has made a career out of lying about the EU being given a top diplomatic job and talks would likely stop immediately.
The sad reality of Trump's intervention is that as the UK tries to find its feet in the world, the hand of friendship from the US President should be reassuring. Unfortunately, that hand is attached to the arm of Donald Trump.
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-uk-visit-2019-gbr-intl/index.html
2019-06-03 14:31:00Z
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