A thread on Trump's Europe visit. The big story so far is not the NATO theatrics which he orchestrated. It is the real time unraveling of the special relationship w/ the UK, illustrated by this bombshell interview in @TheSun thesun.co.uk/news/6766531/t… 1/7
In the interview Trump says the US will abandon trade talks w/ the UK if it pursues a soft Brexit. This isn't an offhand remark. It is the result of a v deliberate administration policy designed to exploit Brexit to get the UK to sign a trade deal that gives the US everything 2/7
Everything means adopting US regulations and de-aligning from the EU 27. This would be a catastrophe for the UK which needs a wide ranging trade deal with the EU 27 for which some regulatory alignment is required. I have called this a predatory policy. 3/7
Over the past 6 months senior UK officials have come to understand that this is the UK approach so they have pulled back. Trump has increased the pressure, including by holding the UK hostage in difficult WTO negotiations. The Sun interview is part of piling on the pressure 4/7
I wrote up some of this in a piece earlier today for @politico politico.com/magazine/story… Trump's interview is a bombshell that fully confirms the predatory policy analysis. 5/7
We often hear we should look at the policy not the tweets but this is a case where the entire admin is lined up behind a policy to exploit Britain's vulnerability. E.g. the State Dept has abdicated responsibility to USTR & has pivoted from Western Europe to the East & South 6/7
That this is all going down while Trump visits Churchill's home is particularly insulting. Much was made of Obama's coolness toward the UK, unfairly imo, but there has never been a postwar American president as hostile toward UK interests as Trump. 7/7
