After criticizing....

After criticizing May, Trump says relationship with U.K. ‘very, very strong’

By LOUIS NELSON

The relationship between the U.S. and United Kingdom is “very, very strong,” President Donald Trump said Friday at a bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May, whose negotiation tactics he criticized heavily in an interview published a day earlier.

“We arrived here last night and we had a dinner where I think we probably never developed a better relationship. We spoke for an hour – an hour and a half – and it was really something, and today we’re talking trade, we’re talking military,” the president said in brief remarks to reporters before his meeting with May, who was seated to his left. “The relationship is very, very strong. We really have a very good relationship.”

While Trump was warm with May on Friday, reminiscing about their Thursday evening dinner and praising the U.K. for being one of a small handful of NATO nations to meet agreed-upon defense spending levels, the U.S. president was deeply critical of her negotiations on the U.K. leaving the European Union – known as Brexit – in an interview with the British tabloid The Sun.

In the interview, Trump said May’s Brexit proposals, which would include an “association agreement” and a free-trade area for goods, “will probably kill” a U.S.-U.K. trade agreement because it would leave the U.K. too close to the EU, whose trade policies the U.S. president has long criticized. Of such a Brexit strategy, Trump said “The deal she is striking is a much different deal than the one the people voted on.”

May’s Brexit strategy has stirred significant controversy within her cabinet in recent days, prompting a string of resignations, most notably Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, among the most prominent Brexit supporters. In his interview with the British tabloid, Trump said Johnson would “make a great prime minister.”

Trump and May ignored shouted questions from reporters Friday about the president’s interview.