Britain wouldn’t be hurt “at all” in terms of trade negotiations with the United States if it exited the European Union, Donald Trump says.
“I don’t think they’ll be hurt at all. I mean, they’ll have to make their own deal. Britain’s been a great ally,” he said in an interview with ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” host Piers Morgan.
The United States is in the midst of negotiating with the European Union a trade pact called the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which is intended largely to smooth out regulatory differences.
President Barack Obama had warned in an April visit to London that Britain would move to “the back of the queue” in negotiating trade deals with the United States should it exit the European Union.
He said a trade deal between the two countries could still happen, “but it’s not going to happen any time soon because our focus is in negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done.”
Trump, though, wouldn’t criticize Britain.
“Britain’s such a great ally that they went into things that they shouldn’t have gone into — like, as an example, going into Iraq, OK? With me, they’ll always been treated fantastically,” he said.
He said he wouldn’t treat Britain any differently in terms of trade negotiations were it to leave the European Union.
“I mean, I’m going to treat everybody fairly but it wouldn’t make any difference to me whether they were in the EU or not,” he said.
Morgan then asked: “We wouldn’t be back of the queue with trade?”
And Trump answered: “You would certainly not be back of the queue. That I can tell you.”