PRESIDENT Donald J. Trump has savaged Theresa the Appeaser and said the weak Prime Minister has wrecked a chance at a vital U.S. trade deal.
As he was sitting down to a State Dinner at the Blenheim Palace – the only Palace in the UK not owned by the monarchy, Britain’s biggest selling daily, The Sun – went to press with a massive exclusive.
The bombshell article that dissed Mrs May and left Downing Street shell-shocked by Donald Trump’s frank view of her Brexit Plan.
The US President claimed that Mrs May had ignored his advice by opting for a soft Brexit strategy and said that any attempts to maintain close ties with the EU will make a vital US trade deal very unlikely.
Mr Trump 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.”
Trump said Mrs May’s plan “will definitely affect trade with the United States, unfortunately in a negative way”.
He added: “If they do that, then their trade deal with the US will probably not be made.”
He explained: “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.”
Questioned on Boris’s comments at a private dinner two weeks ago that Mr Trump “would go in bloody hard” if he was negotiating Brexit, the President swiftly replied: “He is right.”
He added: “I would have done it much differently. I actually told Theresa May how to do it but she didn’t agree, she didn’t listen to me.
“She wanted to go a different route.
“I would actually say that she probably went the opposite way. And that is fine.
“She should negotiate the best way she knows how. But it is too bad what is going on.”
Asked if that meant he would be prepared to walk away from the negotiating table, Trump replied: “Oh, absolutely. I think what is going on is very unfortunate. Too long.
“You know, deals that take too long are never good ones. When a deal takes so long, they never work out very well.”
Mr Trump also went even further in questioning whether Mrs May’s new Brexit plan upholds the referendum result — which he claimed he predicted two years ago. He said: “The deal she is striking is a much different deal than the one the people voted on.
“It was not the deal that was in the referendum. I have just been hearing this over the last three days. I know they have had a lot of resignations. So a lot of people don’t like it.”
Despite the withering criticism of Mrs May’s Brexit strategy, Trump insisted he still thinks she is “a very good person”.
He also denied claims that she bores him.
Asked about a report in The Washington Post that he thinks of Mrs May as “a bossy schoolteacher”, Mr Trump said: “No, no, no, no. I never said anything bad about her.
“That is fake news. I think she is a nice person. I get along with her very nicely. The Washington Post is totally fake. They are just a lobbyist for Amazon.”
Recalling a visit to one of his luxury golf resorts in Scotland two years ago, Mr Trump said: “I predicted Brexit.
I was cutting a ribbon for the opening of Turnberry — you know they totally did a whole renovation, it is beautiful — the day before the Brexit vote.
“I said, ‘Brexit will happen’. The vote is going to go positive, because people don’t want to be faced with the horrible immigration problems that they are being faced with in other countries.
“You remember that Barack Obama said that there is no way it is going to happen, and the UK will get to the back of the line if it ever does, right? I said Brexit will happen, and I was right.”
At a press conference in Brussels yesterday at the end of a summit of Nato leaders, Mr Trump again cast doubt on whether the PM’s soft Brexit plan was true to the referendum result.
He said: “I don’t know if that’s what they voted for.”
READ THE FULL EXCLUSIVE IN-DEPTH TRUMP INTERVIEW IN THE SUN HERE
Big Thanks to The Sun and reporter Tom Newton Dunn for Trump’s comments used in this article.