UK diplomats fear end of special relationship if Trump re-elected | Foreign policy | Th... - 0 views
www.theguardian.com/...lationship-if-trump-re-elected
special relationship trump foreign policy uk leadership
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Sir John Sawers, the former head of M16 and a former UK ambassador to the UN, also said Trump’s re-election would be problematic. “There is no doubt President Trump is the most difficult president for us to deal with,” he said.“He does not really feel that sense of being part of that transatlantic community, he does not really believe in alliances. He does not really believe in American leadership in the world. We are seeing in this pandemic for the first time what a crisis is like without American leadership. It is the first time in our lifetime we have experienced that.
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“If he gets elected for a second time some of the changes we have seen in the past few years will become embedded and entrenched and then, absolutely Britain will not be so much a bridge between the US and Europe. We will need to be bounding closely together with our European partners”
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n a sign of British diplomats’ despair with Trump, Sir Peter Westmacott, a former ambassador to Washington, said: “I would love to say, as we look to the future, would it not be nice to see political leadership also addressing old-fashioned principles such as accountability, respect for the rule of law, independent judiciary, telling the truth, institutional independence and indeed the importance of a free press?
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“That may not be what public opinion is crying out for, but they are not very far removed from the principles that … Biden believes in. Otherwise the chances of the western world retaining any sort of moral leadership and giving itself the right to call out other people when they behave badly will be gone forever.”
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Many senior former UK ambassadors are desperately hoping Washington will lead again. One said: “I think that if you have a different, more internationally minded leadership in the US then a lot of what has happened over the past few years can be reversed. If we get another four years of this leadership, then some of the bonds and some of the cement that holds the west together, and holds Europe and America together will be broken forever. If things change in November then we can recapture things if we get the right sort of leadership in Europe.”