a dangerous liaison?

He called her “my Maggie”, and held her by the hand. He assured her that he was “100% behind Nato” (days after declaring it obsolete) and reaffirmed his commitment to striking a trade deal with the post-Brexit UK. Theresa May and Donald Trump are an “oddly matched pair”, said Heather Stewart in The Observer, but the flamboyant billionaire and the vicar’s daughter seem to have found
surprising common ground during their meeting at the White House last week. At a press conference, the normally abrasive president was calm and even playful. And over their private lunch, the conversation was said – by Downing Street – to have been “warm, free-flowing and unscripted”. Trump declared that Brexit was going to be “a fantastic thing” for the UK, and that “our relationship has never been stronger”. He showed off the bust of Winston Churchill that Barack Obama had
removed, now restored to the Oval Office; and told the PM that when he comes to Britain for a state visit later this year, “I want to see you first”.

And then May found out “what it’s like to be Tangoed”, said Alex Massie in The Spectator. No  sooner had she left the building than her new friend signed an executive order banning the residents of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US temporarily, and Syrian refugees indefinitely; and overnight, her visit – “hailed a ‘triumph’ by friendly newspapers” – became a liability. As anger grew around the world, in Britain more than 1.78 million people signed a petition calling for Trump’s state visit to be cancelled; and the PM’s critics demanded that she denounce the
man she had just wooed. Had May not been in such an unseemly rush to be the first foreign leader to visit Trump at the White House, she’d have seen this coming. Allies need to be reliable: the new US president has done nothing to suggest that he might be a partner this, or indeed any, country could rely on. The PM no doubt thought she was “doing her pragmatic duty” by going to the White House, said The Guardian. But in currying favour with Trump, a president she cannot control, she’s in danger of making the same mistake Tony Blair did with George W. Bush. When Trump was merely a candidate, she condemned his anti-Muslim plans as “divisive, unhelpful and wrong”. She must stand alongside Britain’s allies, in France, Canada, Germany and elsewhere, and speak as plainly now. It is
not in Britain’s interest “to be, or to be seen as, a lackey of possibly the worst president the US” has ever had.

Yet there is something hysterical about the current outcry, said The Daily Telegraph. If the British government does not like US policy (and evidently, in this case it does not), it should let its feelings be known – through diplomacy, not the kind of “frenzied virtuesignalling and phoney outrage” we’ve seen this week. To snub Trump by ripping up his invitation would be a “monumental exercise in
national self-harm”, agreed Robert Hardman in the Daily Mail. And those who demand it are being “wilfully naive”. Trump’s policy was a manifesto promise; he is doing what he was elected to do. Moreover, Obama also restricted travel to the US from these same countries. As for the claim that it’s wrong to drag the Queen into this, she’s had far worse visitors foisted on her – including the Romanian tyrant Nicolae Ceausescu – and she has taken them in her stride. She knows it’s a “mucky old world”. May’s job is to represent our national interest, and it’s in that interest to have the US on our side.

Brexit is the problem, said The Economist. May rushed to Washington because she is desperate to sign a trade deal with the US that can be closed as soon as Brexit takes place. The irony is that leaving the EU was supposed to give Britain more control, to restore its autonomy and independence. Instead, it is forcing our leaders to prostrate themselves before a foreign ruler they find odious, a ruthless dealmaker who knows he has the upper hand. Britain, post- Brexit, finds itself in a strange place, agreed Anne Applebaum in The Washington Post. Isolated, and desperate for trading partners and political friends, it is rushing into the arms of a president who is “drifting away” from transatlantic institutions. Searching for a positive message about Britain’s future at Davos, May lit upon the idea of a “global Britain” that is an advocate of global free markets, and the “rule-based global order”. But if these are British ideals, why is Britain leaving the wealthiest free trade zone in the world, and cosying up to a protectionist for whom the international rules mean nothing? She may or may not be able to strike a trade deal with the US, but while Britain is tied to the US president, her broader vision is doomed.