Donald Trump’s UK visit: five awkward conversations

Intelligence, Iran and abortion access
could all be flashpoints when the US president sits down with
Theresa May

In Depth

Indeed, with Brexit unresolved and the Conservative Party leadership race already in
full swing before May officially resigns on 7 June,
Trump’s three-day state visit “could hardly be more badly
timed”, says Politico.

That said, the news site adds, “will a transformed UK prime
minister be on display – one more likely to challenge the US
president she may never see again?”

“She’s already been pretty straight-talking with him,” said an
unnamed aide to May. “She will be perfectly comfortable speaking
direct to him, but I wouldn’t expect a ‘Love
Actually moment’.”

So what might the pair clash over? The Week looks at five
potential flashpoints between the president and the PM.

Five Eyes

In recent remarks to US press, the president touched on an issue
that he’s made a priority for the talks: the origins of the FBI
probe into possible links between Russia and his campaign in
the 2016 presidential election.

Trump has “ordered his attorney general to scrutinise whether
the UK intelligence services passed on information to the Americans
that helped kick-start the inquiry”, reports The Daily Telegraph.

The US leader has voiced concerns that the CIA or FBI may have
used information passed through the so-called Five Eyes
intelligence sharing network in the investigation.

“President, are you going to talk to Theresa May about potential
Five Eyes spying into your campaign,” he was asked during a press
briefing last month.

“I may very well talk to her about that, yeah,” he responded,
according to a transcript of the remarks
released by the Office of the Press Secretary.

“There’s word and rumour that the FBI and others were involved,
CIA were involved, with the UK, having to do with the Russian
hoax,” Trump continued. “And I may very well talk to her about
that, yes.”

Huawei

Trump is also due to confront May over the potential security
risk posed by using Chinese technology firm Huawei in the UK’s
planned next-generation mobile network. The PM is said to favour
allowing Huawei to be involved in “non-core” parts of the 5G
network.

But over the weekend, two Tory leadership contenders said they
would not allow the company into the UK’s telecommunications
network at all.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said he would not want “any company,
whichever country it’s from, that has a high degree of control by a
foreign government to have access to our very sensitive
telecommunications network”.

Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told CBS News that “buying products from
a specific country could be a back door to espionage”
that threatens UK systems.

Trump voiced similar concerns in an interview with The Sunday Times this weekend. Asked if he
hoped the next British PM would take a different stance on Huawei,
the president said: “Well, you have other alternatives and we
have to be very careful from the standpoint of national security.
You see that maybe now more than ever before.”

He added: “‘National security is so important, so we all have to
be very careful together. And the UK understands that very
well.”

Woody Johnson, the US ambassador to the UK, also criticised
May’s apparent belief that the UK could allow Huawei limited access
to the 5G network. In an interview on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show, Johnson said:
“There’s no such thing as the centre, the core or the outlying
areas. It’s all one big thing.”

Climate

Although Trump’s priorities for the discussions may be
intelligence concerns, Downing Street has told the BBC that May’s goal is to press him on climate
change.

According to The Atlantic, the UK government “feel as if
they have gotten nothing from the Trump administration” so far on
the issue.

The confirmation that May will address such concerns came as 250
climate researchers sent a letter to the PM demanding that she
“robustly challenge” Trump over his failure to protect the
environment.

The group wants May to ask the president to initiate and support
policies to reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions in the US to
zero by the middle of this century, and to reverse the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.

The experts warn that his administration has removed large
amounts of information about climate change from the websites of
the White House, government departments and federal agencies.

“The president has publicly stated his rejection of the
scientific evidence for climate change and the White House is
considering the creation of a committee to cast doubt on the robust
and rigorous analysis presented in the United States Fourth
National Climate Assessment,” they write.

Iran

At the end of last year, Trump used a phone call from May
congratulating him on the midterm results to attack her for not
doing more to contain Iran. According to The Washington Post, the billionaire “berated
the prime minister” for not backing his decision to pull the
US out of the joint Iran nuclear deal.

And there is still “much to disagree about [on the topic] in a
trip that is supposed to emphasise unity”, says the BBC.

One potential sticking point is that while the UK “still
supports the agreement designed to curb Tehran’s nuclear
programme, the US does not and is ready to sanction any British
firm or bank that trades with Iran”, says the broadcaster.

Abortion 

Anti-abortion politicians in the US have launched a series of assaults on abortion
access in recent months – with Alabama’s Republican-controlled
senate passing a near-total ban on the practice.

The situation in the US has drawn comparisons to Northern Ireland, where
abortion is banned in almost every situation. Amnesty International
UK has called the government’s failure to deliver abortion rights
“a cruel betrayal of women”.

“Both Trump and May are likely to be quizzed about abortion
during the visit,” says HuffPost. But “whether either of the leaders
give a straight answer is a very different issue”, the news site
adds.