And then came Donald Trump. The new US president’s first week in office has proved beyond any doubt that he is like nothing that has gone before. Trump is ignorant, prejudiced and vicious in ways that no American leader has been, certainly in living memory. There is no precedent for dealing with such a man in so vital an office, no political or diplomatic road-map on which a British prime minister can draw. When May entered the White House last Friday, she entered uncharted territory.
On the face of it, May emerged unscathed and, fleetingly, with her international reputation enhanced. Survival would have been good enough. But May appeared to exert a briefly calming influence on her unpredictable host. Trump minded his manners and more or less stuck to a conventional script during their joint press conference. More than that, May extracted a pledge of sorts, that he would support Nato “100%”. And she made other gains on the day: the president’s support for Brexit, his promise to negotiate the bilateral trade deal she craves and his endorsement of the “special relationship”. Perhaps May believes the cringe-making moment when Trump, the alleged serial groper, took her by the hand may just have been worth it.
Sadly for May, for the people of Britain, and all those across the world who depend to varying degrees on the leadership and support of the US government, these achievements are likely to prove illusory. Her Washington triumph, if that is what it was, will be short lived. On the issues that matter most to Britain, Trump cannot be trusted. When it comes to Nato and the future of the western alliance, he says contradictory things almost every day. But his underlying message is that he has little use for an organisation he views as a drain on American resources. This reflects his hostility to multilateral collaboration of any kind, be it through trade treaties or the UN. Like his other inarticulate, garbled blatherings, Trump’s Nato promise is worthless.
It is germane to ask whether Britain approves of Trump’s sweeping bans on Muslim immigrants from Middle East countries, including Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya, where the scale of human suffering disgraces the wealthy, western world that did so much to cause it. Yesterday, the human cost of the measure was becoming clear, as anger and fear spread around the globe. Will Britain tell him he is wrong? Or will it now adopt similar “extreme vetting” procedures to ensure people here can still travel to the US?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/29/observer-view-britain-america-theresa-may-donald-trump
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