Trump Exposed Sabotaging Already Fragile U.K. Relations With Highly Petty Demands

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Donald Trump cast himself as a supposedly amazing deal maker while coming into office, promising to restore America’s position in the world, but in reality, he’s only caused our position in the world to worsen in the minds of many.

Instead of the respected leader we once were, under the Trump administration, the United States — at least its government — has devolved into even more of an apparent laughingstock than it was before. A new report from Bloomberg outlines just how such has come about in the case of our relationship with the United Kingdom.

According to the publication, Trump hasn’t limited his whining about the treatment he receives from the press to his public statements, including those offered on Twitter.

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Rather, according to Bloomberg, during a phone conversation with British Prime Minister Theresa May last year, Trump went so far as to complain to the British leader about the negative coverage of him in the British press.

He apparently insisted at the time that he wouldn’t be accepting the U.K.’s offer of a state visit unless May could assure him that he would receive a “warm welcome.” May could do no such thing — at least without the U.S. president actually changing his public behavior — and since then, Trump announced that he had cancelled his plans to make a visit to the U.K., although the visit he cancelled entailed him being on hand for the opening of the new U.S. Embassy in the U.K. and wasn’t just the ceremonial state visit that he had been offered.

Additionally, Trump made up a reason for cancelling his visit to London that was not even based in reality, claiming that it was because he didn’t approve of the Obama administration having sold the U.S. Embassy in London for “peanuts.”

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The Obama administration didn’t sell the U.S. Embassy in London; that transaction was carried out under the Bush administration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE8CHgzuNiM

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim to lead the city, commented on Trump announcing the cancelling of his plans to come to London by saying:

‘It appears that President Trump got the message from the many Londoners who love and admire America and Americans but find his policies and actions the polar opposite of our city’s values of inclusion, diversity and tolerance.’

With Londoners having chosen to elect a Muslim man as their mayor, and Trump having long touted the supposed necessity of a ban on Muslims from entering the U.S., why exactly does he think that the people of Britain will be fond of the idea of him coming on a state visit?

Remember too, Trump ignited fury across the United Kingdom when he retweeted anti-Muslim posts from a far right radical activist. He responded to criticism by training his Twitter sights on PM May, writing that May should “focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom.”

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Bloomberg reports that through all of this, “the offer of a state visit still stands,” but adds that “British officials don’t expect him to take it up any time soon, or perhaps ever.”

How incompetent do you have to be to ruin our relationship with the United Kingdom?

Featured Image via Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images