US President Donald Trump has hailed Brexit as a “very good deal for the UK” and the European Union, applauding Britain’s divorce as “good for the country.”
In an interview with Financial Times at the weekend, Trump makes several comments about Brexit, including that he even predicted it would happen.
He also praised the EU for “getting its act together” following the unveiling of the draft negotiating guidelines as laid out by President of the European Council Donald Tusk late last week.
Tusk has said how the EU27 were united, signalling talks with Britain would be difficult at times, but the EU had no intention to punish the UK for leaving the bloc.
“Brexit is already punitive enough,” he said.
During the FT interview, President Trump admitted that he initially had doubts about Brexit, thinking the EU may “come apart” as a result.
“It is a very interesting thing. If you would have asked me that the day after the election… I would have said, ‘Yeah, it will start to come apart’. But they have done a very good job and — I am meeting with them very soon — they have done a very good job in bringing it back together,” he said.
“I had a great meeting with Chancellor Merkel. I had a great meeting with her, I really liked her. She said the same thing to me.
“It just seems to be that there is a different spirit for holding together. I don’t think they (EU) had that spirit when they were fighting with the UK and [the] UK ultimately decided to go out. I actually think it is going to be a great deal for [the] UK, and I think it is going to be really, really good also for the European Union,” he added.
Prime Minister Theresa May and President Trump already agreed to deepen relations during her visit to the White House earlier this year just after Trump’s inauguration.
At the time May said she was looking forward to pursuing a UK-US free trade agreement in the coming months and acknowledged how the US administration was making trade talks between the two countries one of its earliest priorities.
