US President says post-Brexit UK-US trade deal to happen "very quickly"
G20: UK-US trade deal to happen quickly, says Trump
US President holds post-Brexit trade talks with Britain's Prime Minister
Quote:
Originally Posted by BBC News
US President Donald Trump has said he expects a "powerful" trade deal with the UK to be completed "very quickly".
Speaking at the G20 summit in Hamburg, he said he would visit London. Asked when, he said: "We'll work that out." In one-to-one talks, Mr Trump and UK Prime Minister Theresa May agreed to prioritise work on a post-Brexit trade deal, a UK government official said.
The president made it clear he believed Britain would "thrive" once it had left the European Union, the official added. In the 50-minute meeting - which overran by 20 minutes - the two leaders spent a "significant" amount of time on trade, in a discussion described as entirely "positive".
Mrs May did not raise Mr Trump's decision to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement on tackling climate change during their formal talks. UK officials said she did raise the issue as they walked between meetings, saying Mrs May told him "face-to-face that she hopes the US will rejoin".
Before their meeting, Mr Trump hailed the "very special relationship" he had developed with Mrs May. "There is no country that could possibly be closer than our countries," he told reporters. "We have been working on a trade deal which will be a very, very big deal, a very powerful deal, great for both countries and I think we will have that done very, very quickly."
Under EU rules, formal talks between London and Washington cannot begin until after the UK leaves the EU in March 2019, without EU agreement. Sir Christopher Meyer, a former British ambassador to Washington, said Mr Trump's statement of intent was a "very good sign for the future" and would be "useful" to Mrs May.
Didn't the great Obama threaten us that we'd be at the back of the queue?