May to hail ‘great partnership’ with US as Trump visits No 10

May to hail ‘great partnership’ with US as Trump visits No 10 –

President tweets that ‘big Trade Deal is possible once UK gets rid of the shackles’. Theresa May will insist the relationship between the US and the UK is “a great partnership, but one I believe we can make greater still” as she hosts Donald Trump in Downing Street on Tuesday, in one of her final acts as Conservative leader. With just days to go until she resigns as leader of her party, the prime minister and her husband, Philip May, will welcome the outspoken president for discussions at No 10. Trump and May will not hold a one-to-one bilateral meeting, but they will attend a series of other events painstakingly choreographed to underscore the connections between the two nations. The two leaders will start the day by jointly hosting a business breakfast with US and UK firms, highlighting the claimed benefits of a post-Brexit bilateral free trade deal. Speaking about the relationship between the two countries, the prime minister will say: “It is a great partnership, but one I believe we can make greater still. With a bilateral free trade agreement, with broader economic cooperation and by continuing to work together to underpin, shape and influence the global economy and its rules and institutions – keeping markets free, fair and open, and keeping our industries competitive.” Trump tweeted on Monday afternoon that a “big Trade Deal is possible once UK gets rid of the shackles”. However, ministers have been forced to reiterate that the NHS would not be put up for grabs in negotiations, after the US ambassador, Woody Johnson, suggested on Sunday that “the entire economy”, including healthcare, should be “on the table”. The health secretary, Matt Hancock, said the NHS was “not for sale”. Executives of Barclays and the British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline are among those invited to the breakfast meeting at St James’s Palace in central London, bit it is a much smaller affair than the business leaders’ banquet at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire that attracted about 150 guests during Trump’s visit to the UK last year. The meeting, which is expected to last about an hour, will be attended by Ivanka Trump and the Duke of York. Invitations were extended to an equal number of US and UK businesses, across a range of sectors including defence, banking and pharmaceuticals. Among the business leaders expected to attend are the BAE Systems chairman, Sir Roger Carr, National Grid’s chief executive, John Pettigrew, GSK’s Emma Walmsley and Jes Staley of Barclays. Rakesh Kapoor, the outgoing chief executive of the consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser, is also on the list. US business leaders are expected to include the Lockheed Martin chief executive, Marillyn Hewson, and the head of Estée Lauder UK and Ireland, Philippe Warnery. Whitehall is trying inject relevance into the political talks in Downing Street by stressing the two sides will address a full agenda covering evidence of Iran’s disruption in the Middle East, relations with China and Russia, and the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria. Whitehall sources said the issues would remain largely unaltered regardless of May’s successor. No 10 is not expecting a major communique or any announcements and is instead pointing to the importance of the common commitment by 16 world leaders on the anniversary of D-day, the largest gathering of world leaders since the 2014 Nato summit in 2014 in Wales. Government sources stressed that “irrespective of whoever is in office, there are factors in the US-US alliance that make it more important than any other”. No 10 rejected suggestions from the national security adviser John Bolton that the UK might defect from its European allies Germany and France by ending its support for the Iran nuclear deal once Brexit goes ahead. UK support for the deal was independent of its EU membership, officials said. British officials are waiting to hear if the US will go ahead with a planned presentation to the UN security council of intelligence evidence that Iran, or its surrogates, were behind the recent attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf. May became one of the first world leaders to visit Trump in the White House, in January 2017. She gave a speech in Philadelphia, en route, praising some of the multilateral institutions Trump has criticised including Nato and the UN. “Some of these organisations are in need of reform and renewal to make them relevant to our needs today. But we should be proud of the role our two nations – working in partnership – played in bringing them into being, and in bringing peace and prosperity to billions of people as a result,” she said. May will press home that message with her gift to the president, presenting him with a framed copy of Winston Churchill’s personal draft of the Atlantic Charter, agreed with President Roosevelt in early August 1941. The document set out the two leaders’ goals for the postwar world, including the hope that “all nations of the world must be guided in spirit to the abandonment of the use of force” and the promise of “fullest cooperation” between nations in improving citizens’ living standards. Melania Trump will be given a souvenir Downing Street tea set – and she and Philip May will attend a garden party with staff from the US embassy and No 10. The two leaders and their delegations will lunch on Paignton crab, Lake District beef and Eton Mess.