President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrive at Stansted Airport for their first official visit to Britain. Credit: Leon Neal/Getty Images
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Today’s visit to the UK by President Trump is making waves. Well, it’s making waves in Britain, the American press are uninterested, focusing instead on the NATO summit. But with protests planned and serious security scheduled, some in Britain are worrying about making a bad impression. They needn’t be. Why? Because, for better or for worse, “he’s just not that into you”.
It’s not that the Special Relationship is off. It’s more that the UK–US relationship just isn’t that important in Trump’s plans.
Trump’s foreign policy is built on the idea that America needs to be stronger in asserting its narrower self-interests. That means under his guidance, America will seek to renegotiate the terms of the rules-based international order that was built, largely upon America’s insistence, over the last few decades.
And Britain doesn’t feature much into that strategy, for reasons both good and bad. On the plus side, Trump doesn’t think that Britain is a major problem within the current system. Unlike his long-time bete noire Germany, Britain neither runs a large trade deficit nor chronically underfunds its military. Britain is also not a frontline state in the conflict with Russia: Germany and the East would be under any threat long before Britain would. Thus, the argument that Trump advances – that the US is picking up the bill for defending countries against Russia – doesn’t apply to the UK.
In addition, aside from the vital intelligence Britain shares with US spy agencies, the UK simply isn’t a player in arenas that Trump sees as threats – like China and Iran.
The flip side of this is that there’s also nothing Britain has that is of much value to Trump. Unlike other US Presidents, who looked at the UK as a potential military partner, Trump both doesn’t want to use American military might, and when he’s pushed to, he’s a unilateralist of the highest order.
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