Clutching Mays hand on the way to the podium set up for the two leaders at Chequers, Trump repeatedly tried to tone down his previous comments, via a newspaper interview, that May was killing the prospect of a U.S. trade deal by failing to see through a total divorce from the EU.<\/p>\n
Instead, Trump set about praising the prime minister as an \u201cextraordinary woman\u201d with whom he had \u201cthe most special\u201d relationship.<\/p>\n
If Angela Merkel<\/a> was watching, she could be forgiven for cringing in sympathy, having felt the brunt of Trumps up-and-down diplomacy days earlier. After initially accusing her of being \u201ctotally controlled\u201d by Russia, Trump declared he had a great relationship with the German leader when sitting next to her hours later.<\/p>\n The plan was to not even try to control Trumps outbursts \u2014 accepting they would come \u2014 but to try and ride them out<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n If there was a pattern to Trumps diplomacy on his whirlwind tour of Europe this week, it was this: First the detonation, then the clean up \u2014 whatever the chaos and confusion left behind.<\/p>\n For May, it was brutal 48 hours.<\/p>\n In three successive outbursts aimed squarely at the U.K. prime minister in the days leading up to his arrival in the U.K on Thursday, Trump had found the bruise in British politics causing May so much pain \u2014 Brexit \u2014 and set about taking a sledgehammer to it.<\/p>\n Mays closest aides had braced themselves for Trumps unique brand of \u201cf\u2013k you\u201d diplomacy<\/a>, senior U.K. government officials said ahead of the visit. <\/p>\n The plan was to not even try to control Trumps outbursts \u2014 accepting they would come \u2014 but instead to ride them out, according to a senior official familiar with Mays thinking ahead of the trip.<\/p>\n Donald Trump meets Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle in England | Chris Jackson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n And yet when the presidents most full-frontal attack landed Thursday night \u2014 splashed on the front page<\/a> of the most popular newspaper in Britain, the Sun, just as the prime minister was sat with the president at a gala dinner in his honor at Blenheim Palace<\/a> \u2014 the laser-guided ferocity of his assault on her biggest weakness appeared to catch even Downing Street cold.<\/p>\n Trump told the Sun the Brexit divorce deal being pursued by May \u201cwill probably kill the [trade] deal\u201d he hopes to sign with the U.K. after Britain has left the EU. He also revealed he had warned May to be much tougher with the EU.<\/p>\n \u201cI would have done it much differently,\u201d<\/a> he said. \u201cI actually told Theresa May how to do it but she didnt agree, she didnt listen to me. She wanted to go a different route.\u201d<\/p>\n For May, struggling to keep the right wing of her party on board as she seeks a compromise Brexit acceptable to the U.K. parliament and EU leaders, the attack could not have been more damaging.<\/p>\n It was not Trumps only assault. He had first laid out his discontent with the U.K. prime minister during a press conference at the end of the NATO summit. Responding to prodding from British reporters, the U.S. president said he didnt know if Mays Brexit proposal was what the British people voted for.<\/p>\n It came after Trump praised former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson \u2014 a potential Brexiteer rival for the Conservative party leadership \u2014 as he prepared to set off for Europe from the U.S. Tuesday, declaring Johnson had what it takes \u201cto be a great prime minister.\u201d<\/p>\n Thousands of anti-Trump protesters gathered in Trafalgar square | Niklas Hallen\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n It was a message he repeated in the Sun and again at Chequers.<\/p>\n For May, Trumps criticism only served to reinforce accusations she was being too weak in her dealings with the EU from the right of her party \u2014 and too weak in her dealings with the U.S. president from those on her left.<\/p>\n The closest she came to criticizing the president was when she addressed his attacks head on. \u201cI heard the turn of phrase the president used earlier,\u201d she said. \u201cBut let me be clear about this: We will be leaving the European Union.\u201d<\/p>\n She added: \u201cThe Chequers agreement reached last week provides the platform for Donald and me to agree an ambitious deal that works for both countries right across our economies.\u201d<\/p>\n Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage<\/a> declared Trump was \u201cabsolutely right\u201d while hardline Brexiteers in the Conservative Party threatening to drag May from power rowed in behind the president.<\/p>\n Farage said the intervention had come as \u201ca bombshell to the establishment in London.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump could not resist adding that his advice on how to handle the Brexit negotiations was probably \u201ctoo brutal\u201d for May.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n He added: \u201cNumber one, Trump believes in Brexit. He believes in a world of democratic nation states cooperating with each other, not globalist structures like the European Union. Number two, he feels the U.S. administration has been very badly let down.\u201d<\/p>\n Ian Paisley Jnr, one of the Democratic Unionist Party MPs who Mays government relies upon to stay in power, also defended Trumps intervention. <\/p>\n Paisley, who was invited to the White House in March and who has known the U.S. president since 2006, said Trumps intervention was \u201ca bit of a wake-up call.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor him leave really does mean leave, Brexit really does mean Brexit. He doesnt do nuance, I think that would be the kindest thing to say. Does he seek to cause offense by it? No, he is just in your face.\u201d<\/p>\n For Trumps critics \u2014 and some of his supporters \u2014 it is part of a pattern of behaviour intended to shake up the rules of the game wherever he goes.<\/p>\n On the \u201cGood Morning Britain\u201d TV show early Friday, former White House aide Steve Bannon said Trump was standing up against the \u201ccorporate interests\u201d in the City of London who were out to stop Brexit.<\/p>\n Former UKIP leader \u2014 and Trump uber-fan \u2014 Nigel Farage | Frederick Florin\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n Former German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel claimed Trumps treatment of Merkel was a sign that he wanted \u201cregime change\u201d in Berlin. Former U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband picked up on the theme, warning that the \u201cturmoil\u201d Trump had identified in the U.K. had its origins \u201cin the world view (and myths) of the alt right\u201d in the U.S. and warned the U.K. government it needed to \u201cwake up to the new world disorder\u201d embodied by the president.<\/p>\n Leslie Vinjamuri, from Chatham House, agreed that Trumps policy was to \u201csow division wherever he goes\u201d and praised May for being \u201cremarkably unflappable\u201d in response.<\/p>\n At Chequers, Trump attempted to row back on his earlier comments, insisting that \u201cwhatever you do is okay with me\u201d before adding: \u201cJust make sure we can trade together \u2014 thats all that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n However, he could not resist adding that his advice on how to handle the Brexit negotiations was probably \u201ctoo brutal\u201d for May.<\/p>\n At this, the prime minister looked on stony faced. <\/p>\n Former U.K. ambassador to France Peter Ricketts said the strategy being pursued by Number 10 was \u201cfirm in private, dont escalate in public.\u201d<\/p>\n May stuck to that strategy, whatever the cost.<\/p>\n Exposing the scale of the challenge highlighted by Trump, May went straight from hosting the U.S. president to welcoming a group of Conservative Eeuroskeptics to brief them on her Brexit plan in an attempt to reduce the number of rebels prepared to vote against any deal she strikes with Brussels.<\/p>\n LONDON \u2014 Not even Donald Trump can defuse a diplomatic hand grenade after it has gone off.<\/p>\n At an ex..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[202],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/GettyImages-997842616-714x476.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\nBrexit attack part 1<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n\n
Shake, rattle and troll<\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/GettyImages-931293072-714x476.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\nRead this next: 7 memorable Trump moments in Europe (so far)<\/a><\/em><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"