Boris Johnson has reaffirmed his support of holding an official state visit for Donald Trump, despite the US President’s opportunism in exploiting the London Bridge terror attack for his own political advantage.
When Theresa May offered Trump an official state visit when the pair first met, it was an unprecedented move for a new and controversial president. Now, after Trump has exploited the London Bridge terror attack to try and gain support for his unconstitutional “Muslim ban” and called London Mayor Sadiq Khan “pathetic” for telling Londoner’s not to panic, in an interview on the BBC Today programme, the Foreign Secretary reaffirmed that the Conservative government would roll out the red carpet for Trump.
Trump has found few friends on the international stage since taking office as he attempts to force economic nationalism into US international diplomacy. In just a few months, Trump has managed to alienate America’s closest allies by refusing to show support for Article 5 of the Nato treaty, and then the rest of the world by by pulling the US, the globe’s second largest polluter, out of the Paris climate agreements. Meanwhile, US voters are increasingly disappointed with his effectiveness as a political leader, federal judges have stepped in to block his unconstitutional and arguably racist “Muslim ban”, and the investigation over his alleged ties with Russia to corrupt last year’s Presidential election continues apace.
However, none of this appears to be a problem for Johnson or Theresa May, who refuse to condemn Trump’s increasingly erratic and damaging comments and actions, and still plan to spend millions of pounds on a state visit, where Trump has demanded a gold-plated carriage.
