President Trump on Tuesday told lame duck British Prime Minister Theresa May to “stick around” and suggested the two countries could ink a trade deal as England tries to negotiate its withdrawal from the European Union.
“It’s an honor to have worked with you. And I don’t know exactly what your timing is, but stick around. Let’s do this deal, okay?,” Trump told May during a breakfast meeting with American and British business executives.
May announced last month that she plans to step down on Friday because of fallout being able to get Parliament to agree on a Brexit deal.
“I think we’ll have a very, very substantial trade deal,” the president said at the business roundtable on the second day of his state visit to England. “It’ll be a very fair deal. And I think that this is something that your folks want to do, my folks want to do, and we want to do.”
Trump’s comments come after he floated the idea of working out a trade deal with England that would compensate for any losses it incurs from leaving the US in an interview with the Sunday Times.
Trump told the newspaper that he “would go all out” to broker a deal.
“We have the potential to be an incredible trade partner with the UK. We have tremendous potential to make up more than the difference. We will be talking to them about that. One of the advantages of Brexit is the fact that now you can deal with the No 1 economy in the world by far,” Trump said.
May sounded receptive, calling for “building a wider economic partnership.”
“I think there are huge opportunities for us to seize together in the future, and challenges for us to work together to tackle on, as well. And the opportunity today is that we’re going to be able to look at how we do both of those,” she said.