Trump vows trade deal with UK

Trump vows trade deal with UK January 17, 2017

UK Prime Minister Theresa May
UK Prime Minister Theresa May

In an interview with the London Times [subscription required], Donald Trump promised a quick trade deal with the UK, thus helping its Brexit transition.  (British prime minister Theresa May and other Brexit supporters were delighted at the news.)

He also gave other indications of what his new foreign policy would be like:  He said he supported NATO, though he considered it “obsolete,” saying only five NATO members are paying their dues.  He also said he might suspend sanctions against Russia in exchange for a nuclear arms cut.

The EU is alarmed because it had been planning to punish the UK economically for pulling out of the union.  Furthermore, if Trump is going to reward UK for breaking away from the European Union, will that encourage other member nations to do the same? Trump’s NATO talk also has Europe worried that they may have to go it alone militarily without the US.

If a free trade pact with the UK were to be extended to other countries that break away from the EU, that could create a new bloc of nations, dominated by the US.  Or maybe Trump’s deal could be extended to other English-speaking countries, such as Canada and Australia.  Throw in India, with its vast population and emerging wealth, as an alternative to China.

Whatever happens, Trump is going to remake American foreign policy, for better or worse (or some of both).

From Trump vows to strike post-Brexit deal with UK, rips EU as ‘vehicle for Germany’ | Fox News:

President-elect Donald Trump vowed over the weekend to quickly work out a trade deal with Britain in a bid to help smooth the country’s path out of the European Union — further strengthening ties with the Brexit movement he lauded during his campaign.

At the same time, in an interview with The Times of London published Sunday, Trump also riled European leaders by dismissing the E.U. as a “vehicle for Germany.”

Trump ripped German Chancellor Angela Merkel over her decision to welcome more than a million Syrian refugees into her country. While Trump said he had great respect for Merkel, he accused her of making “a catastrophic mistake,” which triggered Brexit.

“[I]f they [EU countries] hadn’t been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that it … entails, I think that you wouldn’t have a Brexit,” he said.

Trump used the interview to again endorse the Brexit decision to leave the E.U., saying he was a “big fan” of the U.K.

Amid widespread questions over how the U.K. will re-establish trade ties with international partners once it leaves, Trump vowed to work out a U.S.-U.K. agreement soon: “We’re gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly. Good for both sides.”

Trump’s remarks stand in contrast to President Obama’s warning before the June vote that Britain would be at the “back of the queue” for a trade deal if it voted to leave.

[Keep reading. . .]

 

Photo by ukhomeoffice [OGL (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/1/) or CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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