Washington: US diplomats have dropped plans for Donald Trump to conduct a visit to Britain in January amid a war of words between the leaders of both the countries. Trump had been scheduled for a ‘working visit’ to UK in the first month of 2018 to formally open America’s new London embassy. The trip, a scaled down version of a state visit with no meeting with the Queen, was intended to allow Trump to come to the UK while avoiding the mass protests a full state visit would likely to trigger.
However, according to reliable sources, the trip has been pushed into the long grass, with no new date in the diary picked. A senior US diplomat said: "The idea of a visit has obviously been floated, but not December and not January. I would not expect a Trump visit in January."
Focus on terror, not on me, Trump tells May
Trump, in an unprecedented public attack rebuked Theresa May on Twitter after Britain criticised him for retweeting British far right anti-Islam videos. “Theresa @theresamay, don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine,” Trump tweeted, sparking further outrage in Britain that has seen several major Islamist militant attacks on its streets.
Trump’s unrepentant response was a reaction to May’s spokesman who criticised his retweets of anti-Islam videos originally posted by a leader of a British far-right fringe group. “It is wrong for the president to have done this,” the spokesman said. Trump sparked criticism on both sides of the Atlantic by sharing anti-Muslim videos posted by Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of the group Britain First, who was convicted this month for abusing a Muslim woman.
His new response triggered outrage in Britain, with some opposition politicians demanding he apologise for his sharp words to May. Islamist militants have carried out several major attacks in Britain this year that have killed a total of 36 people, including a bombing in Manchester and two attacks on bridges in London in which victims were rammed with vehicles and stabbed. A spokesman for May declined to comment on Trump’s tweet.
