The Spectator

Trading places | 26 January 2017

Theresa May's visit to Donald Trump could be a decisive moment for post-Brexit Britain

After any other US election it would cause little comment that the new president had chosen the British Prime Minister for his first meeting with a foreign leader. Yet this time, Theresa May’s trip to Washington feels quite a coup. She has fallen out of favour with her fellow EU leaders, sent home from December’s summit in Brussels without any supper as they tried to portray her as internationally isolated. Yet here she is being invited to the White House, lured with the promise of a trade deal. How long ago it seems that Barack Obama was threatening to send Britain to the ‘back of the queue’ if the country voted for Brexit.

There are some who will think the Prime Minister ill-advised to be appearing as the best buddy of a president who is already deeply unpopular internationally and at home. Yet the meeting is not foremost about Donald Trump, however much the narcissist in him will disagree. It is about establishing freer trade between the people of Britain and those of the United States, something the EU tried but failed to do during Barack Obama’s time in office. Like it or not, if you want to do business with America, Donald Trump is now the man you have to deal with.

Theresa May’s primary objective will be to establish whether Trump is serious about doing a quick trade deal with Britain, and what progress might be made towards that aim before we leave the EU. The President’s tub-thumping protectionist speeches mask a more coherent idea: he dislikes multilateral trade deals, preferring nation-to-nation ones. Various statements by him, combined with his action this week in withdrawing the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) — the 12-country trade agreement signed by Obama but never ratified in Congress — suggest he is not anti-free trade but is against large trade blocs.

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