British Prime Minister Theresa May is in America to meet with President Trump and talk over a few things, and took advantage of an invitation to address the Republican Retreat in Philadelphia. The basic theme of her speech was renewing the UK's special relationship with America. She got an extremely warm reception.
She spoke movingly about the ties between America and the UK, invoking the close relationship between President Reagan and PM Margaret Thatcher. She recognizes, thank goodness, that this is an American renewal and obviously supports it. I think PM May and President Trump will get along famously.
PM May is obviously excited over Trump's offer of a separate trade deal now that Britain is leaving the EU.
While I thought the speech was well done, the following items were sour notes:
Her remarks on the Iran deal 'preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons for at least a decade' were, shall I say, more than a tad optimistic and far fetched, since it has done nothing of the kind. Deals like this between totalitarian regimes and democratic nations seldom turn out well, and the Iran deal is no exception. Watch and see.
While she did mention 'radical Islamism' and she's obviously no fool on the matter, her remarks on the peaceful nature of ' millions of Muslims' were obsequious and obviously designed to try to placate Muslims in the UK - a significant number of whom are definitely not peaceful.The UK actually has 9 sharia courts Muslims are required to use for family law, with horrendous results for the UK's Muslim women. You'll notice her audience didn't applaud during either of those two segments.
As an aside, it was also rather cute that she's obviously not used to American audiences. We Yanks tend to applaud far more then Brits do, more vociferously and whenever we feel like it!
All in all though, a great start.
Update: Here's their joint press conference. It appears the president and the UK's PM have a lot in common and things are going along just fine so far:
I think the "sour notes" are a bit to much and frankly will be difficult if not impossible to overcome. She is a Western European. She cannot change this.
ReplyDeleteVery respectfully there was a reason the founders of America left places like the UK and came to America. We do NOT want a special relationship with them.
What we want is for them to respect us, trade with us in areas where it benefits both of our peoples, and beyond that LEAVE US ALONE and STAY OUT OF OUR AFFAIRS. I think you and her are right about this being an American renewal. As part of the renewal, a return to founding principles would be in order. As part of this, we do NOT want a "special" relationship with the United Kingdom or any other Western European nation for that matter.
Unless we want to talk trade or how to defeat common enemies such as Islamic terrorists and the nations who support them, there is really nothing to discuss and speeches before "Republican retreats" are not necessary and are a waste of time. In the case of trade, frankly I don't think they have anything that can't be obtained either here in the United States or elsewhere for a better price and a higher quality. In the case of Islamic terrorism and the nations who support them, the "sour points" you mention clearly indicates she hasn't a clue and even if she did the weak British military can offer little of substance to assist. Ms. May can return to the UL, crawl back in the hole she came out, and stay in this hole never to be seen by us again. We wouldn't miss her.
The only thing the UL got right in recent times is BREXIT. Oh wait, Ms. May didn't support BREXIT. She really can crawl back in the hole from which she emerged from!!