Donald Trump has warned Theresa May’s Brexit plan will “kill” any future US trade deal in bombshell comments as the President met the Prime Minister in the UK.
Soon after Trump arrived at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire for a gala black tie dinner on Thursday night, The Sun newspaper published an interview with the US President that is likely to embarrass his host.
He told the newspaper that Britain remaining so closely aligned to the European Union under her plans would undermine a UK-US trade pact - which is seen as one of the biggest prizes after quitting the bloc.
In a another swipe, Trump also said he would have done the Brexit negotiations “much differently” and claimed the Prime Minister did not listen to his advice.
Trump’s highly-controversial remarks came at the end of a day in which he had already waded deeply into the Brexit row over May’s Brexit vision.
He had used a Thursday morning press conference in Brussels to attack the Prime Minister’s Brexit plan and highlight Cabinet divisions.
In the Belgium city, the president told The Sun: “If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK, so it will probably kill the deal.
“If they do that, then their trade deal with the US will probably not be made.”
May’s plan “will definitely affect trade with the United States, unfortunately in a negative way”.
He said: “We have enough difficulty with the European Union.
“We are cracking down right now on the European Union because they have not treated the United States fairly on trading.
“No, if they do that I would say that that would probably end a major trade relationship with the United States.”
Labour MP Emily Thornberry has since come to May’s defence saying it had been “extraordinarily rude of Donald Trump to behave like this”.
“She is his host. What did his mother teach him? This is not the way you behave,” the shadow foreign secretary told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
Thornberry said Trump’s comments on the PM’s Brexit strategy and his suggestion Johnson would be a “great prime minister” were “rudeness upon rudeness upon rudeness”.
Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston said Trump was “determined to insult” May.
She added: “The divisive, dog-whistle rhetoric in his @TheSun interview is repulsive.
“If signing up to the #Trump world view is the price of a deal, it’s not worth paying.”
The timing of Trump’s comments added to the awkwardness. May had used the Blenheim black tie dinner with political and business leaders to press Trump on the benefits of a free trade deal after Brexit.
Addressing the 100-strong group, the Prime Minister said there was an “unprecedented” opportunity to do a deal that boosted jobs and growth in both countries.