Trump takes parting Brexit shot at Theresa May, says he won't 'deal' with U.K. ambassador
President Trump lashed out Monday at British Prime Minister Theresa May and the U.K. ambassador who described the administration, in diplomatic cables leaked to the press, as “dysfunctional” and “inept.” Trump said the U.S. would no longer “deal with” the ambassador from America’s closest European ally.
“I have been very critical about the way the U.K. and Prime Minister Theresa May handled Brexit,” Trump tweeted. “What a mess she and her representatives have created. I told her how it should be done but she decided to go another way. I do not know the Ambassador, but he is not liked or well thought of within the U.S. We will no longer deal with him.”
In cables leaked last week, Kim Darroch, the British ambassador to the United States, painted a damning portrait of Trump to his superiors.
“We don’t really believe this Administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept,” Darroch wrote.
May, who stepped down as the head of the Conservative Party on June 7 but remains acting prime minister until a new leader is chosen, said Monday that while she disagrees with Darroch’s assessment of Trump, she continues to have “full faith” in the diplomat.
The British Foreign Office has begun investigating who was behind the leak.
May’s failed attempts to negotiate a slower British withdrawal from the European Union led her to resign the office she has held since 2016.
Before his first state visit to the U.K., Trump criticized May’s leadership on Brexit.
“I’m surprised at how badly it’s all gone from the standpoint of a negotiation. I gave the prime minister my ideas on how to negotiate it, and I think you would have been successful,” Trump said. “She didn’t listen to that and that’s fine — she’s got to do what she’s got to do. I think it could have been negotiated in a different manner, frankly. I hate to see everything being ripped apart now.”
The Confederation of British Industry is warning that without a deal to delay or slow down the pace of Brexit, Britain faces the prospect of crippling declines in business investment.
The Conservative Party is likely to appoint a leader more sympathetic to the so-called hard Brexit, a definitive break with the European Union, rather than the more gradual approach May tried to negotiate.
“The good news for the wonderful United Kingdom is that they will soon have a new Prime Minister,” Trump tweeted. “While I thoroughly enjoyed the magnificent State Visit last month, it was the Queen who I was most impressed with!”
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