"Trump’s comments come as British politics remain on edge. The country is scheduled to leave the E.U. on October 31, after delaying its original departure date by months due to a lack of political consensus in Britain.
Prime Minister Theresa May announced her resignation earlier last month after repeatedly failing to gain support for the withdrawal deal she negotiated with the E.U. Parliament rejected the withdrawal deal three times and May was unable to win backing for it to pass in a fourth vote.
Trump also said he “wouldn’t pay” the $50 billion so-called “divorce bill” to settle the U.K.’s financial obligations with the E.U.: “I’m only saying this from my stand point. I would not pay, that’s a tremendous number,” Trump said.
A number of leading Brexit supporters are calling for the U.K. to prepare to leave the E.U. without any deal at all, which means Britain would have no trade arrangement with the bloc, likely resulting in economic disruption. " CNBC
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There is always the pesky problem of a re-emergent intra Ireland hard border, and then there is the loud mouthed mayor of greater London. He is something like the British version of De Blasio, the lord mayor of greater Manhattan.
Nevertheless, Trump's instinct in offering full support for a major US/UK trade relationship is, IMO, a sound idea. essentially a reversion to US/UK trade relations from the status quo ante the EU. What was wrong with that set of arrangements?
The globalists on both sides of the Atlantic will grind their jaws in frustration. So much the better! What would Scotland do? "Time will tell."
*******
Please watch the video of the official reception at Buckingham Palace. The troops are from the Grenadier Guards Regiment of the Household Division. President Trump when escorted by the commander of troops to inspect the guard of honor asks the Grenadier officer if he may speak to the men. After a moment's thought the commander responds in the affirmative and Trump chats his way down the lines speaking with astonished soldiers. Prince Charles finally joins in the conversation. Trump's exchange at the end of the front rank with the Regimental Sergeant Major of the Grenadier Guards must have been a wonderful moment. The two companies of the Guards then passed in review behind "Here's Health Unto Her Majesty ," and "The British Grenadier," (their regimental march.)
Pilgrims, I have been in a hell of a lot of parades, guard mounts and the like and IMO the president's desire to talk to the men was altogether charming. pl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otkCfacn_Uw
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/02/trump-tells-uk-to-walk-away-if-eu-doesnt-agree-to-brexit-deal.html
I am sorry Pat, no doubt a perfectly planned part of the regal protocol.
I'll try to behave.
Posted by: joanna | 04 June 2019 at 12:30 PM
joanna
Don't you understand human spontaneity at all?
Posted by: turcopolier | 04 June 2019 at 12:32 PM
Company Sergeant-major rather than RSM, but agree that it was nice.
Posted by: John Bald | 04 June 2019 at 01:43 PM
Another Baldy - Thanks. So, I guess a company sergeant major is an OR-2? As you may know US Army,Navy and USMC have warrant officers but if I am current they mess and are quartered with the officers when they are above WO-1. A CWO-5 is paid I think at the level of a field officer.
Posted by: turcopolier | 04 June 2019 at 03:30 PM
He hasn't started a war as dumb as the one Bush-Cheney gave us. Gravitas ain't everything.
Posted by: Joseph Moroco | 04 June 2019 at 05:53 PM
Colonel - thank you for putting up that video. A hearty welcome to your President!
Posted by: English Outsider | 04 June 2019 at 05:55 PM
Don't be so sure. We may decide to keep him.
Posted by: English Outsider | 04 June 2019 at 06:10 PM
Begob - that's the mistake I made at first. To think of the affair as no more than a trade deal.
It doesn't work like that. Trade integration within the EU is not comparable to a normal trading relationship. It is integration within a network of rules that do facilitate trade, but that also keep those inside that network locked in.
As we in the UK are finding, it is difficult to stay locked in within that trading network without also becoming politically locked in. Since the aim of the EU is "ever closer union" this means that those who join it for the convenience and benefits of trading within that network gradually find themselves absorbed.
It is as if Canada were to enter into into a close trading relationship with the USA and were then to find that decisions hitherto made in Ottowa were increasingly made in Washington. Maybe that would suit the Canadians. Maybe it wouldn't. If it didn't suit them the Canadians would have a devil of a job getting free of Washington politically were the USA to use the trading links to keep it locked in.
So it's better to think of Brexit as an odd sort of war of independence, but one in which the weapon is trade, not guns.
If you think of it as a struggle for independence then the whole becomes easier to understand. And in fact the closest parallel I know is the Irish struggle for independence, though there it was guns not trade that finally settled the matter.
Posted by: English Outsider | 04 June 2019 at 06:45 PM