Trump on the day of his inauguration remains a mystery to be unveiled. As one of America’s closest allies, Britain would normally have a good idea by now of where the new administration stood on the great foreign policy issues of the time.
But all we really have are slogans: “peace through strength” and “make America great again”. The rest is a mishmash of signs, portents, contradictions and, here and there, the radical destruction of decades of conventional foreign policy wisdom.
For many this is a cause for apprehension and dismay. Never since the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany has that country and its leader been so insulted by a US president-elect, or any president in office, than by Mr Trump in his interview earlier this week with Michael Gove in The Times. Never has a president-to-be shown such disdain for the EU and Nato.
I often feel a similar apprehension, albeit interspersed, I have to admit, with moments of closet exhilaration at the novelty of it all.
Yet the Trump ascendancy offers the UK opportunities to advance our national interests if we are tough and skilful enough to grasp them. What we don’t want, unless it is firmly contained within a lockbox of realpolitik, is sentimental guff about the “special relationship”. Our craving for this rhetorical device is as demeaning to the UK as our trying to play Greeks to their Romans is to the US.
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It is for reasons of state that an early May meeting with Trump is necessary. The US is essential to our security and prosperity. It is our single biggest trading and investment partner. Our defence cooperation covers everything from nuclear weapons to the troubled F-35 aircraft, intended for our two new aircraft carriers, whose cost Trump has repeatedly criticised.
May needs to put in the British fix on revitalising Nato; standing firm against Putin’s revanchism; maintaining an open, global trading system, essential to our future outside the EU; intensifying cooperation between our intelligence services against terrorism. In these objectives she may well have the support of key members of the Trump team.
If May can make good progress on this agenda, including a trade agreement, it will be good for Britain and send a clear message to the EU. Britain really does have other options and “no deal is better than a bad deal” is no empty slogan.
Christopher Meyer was British ambassador to the United States, 1997–2003