President Barack Obama said Friday that the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom will not change following the Brexit vote.
“While the UK’s relationship with the EU will change, one thing that will not change is the special relationship that exists between our two nations,” Obama said during remarks at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, after Britons decided to separate from the European Union. “That will endure.”
Obama noted that the referendum, characterized by a fierce populist debate on issues like immigration and the economy, spoke to “the ongoing changes and challenges that are raised by globalization.”
“While the UK’s relationship with the EU will change, one thing that will not change is the special relationship that exists between our two nations. That will endure,” said Obama, who in April visited London to urge the country to stay a European member state.
The President spoke with British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday, saying afterwards that the EU will remain a “vital” U.S. partner, alongside NATO.
“Our shared values including our commitment to democracy and pluralism … will continue to unite all of us,” Obama said, repeating a common theme in his addresses as criticism of immigrants and religious minorities has featured in the presidential campaign.
Other top U.S. leaders across the political spectrum also stressed continuity in America’s relationship with the UK, even as the result roiled global economic markets, surprised friends and allies, and raised questions about the political future of both Europe and London.
In a statement earlier Friday, Obama said that the U.S. respected the decision in which nearly 52% voted to leave while 48% preferred to stay.
“The people of the United Kingdom have spoken, and we respect their decision,” he said. As pundits repeatedly used the analogy of divorce, the President made clear that America would not be choosing sides.
Vice President Joe Biden, the administration’s less-filtered voice, spoke in Ireland about White House disappointment at the result.
“I must say we had looked for a different outcome,” he said in Dublin. “We preferred a different outcome.”
Like other leaders, Biden stressed his respect for the decision and used words that cropped up repeatedly in official reactions, stressing the depth, closeness and endurance of the bond between the two countries that share history and cultural roots, and cooperate deeply on foreign policy and intelligence.
These leaders were trying in part to calm tumbling global markets as stocks reeled in the vote’s aftermath.
U.S. stocks plummeted almost 500 points Friday morning for their biggest drop in 10 months, a concrete reflection of how politics on one side of the Atlantic can profoundly affect the other.
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic party’s presumptive presidential nominee, focused on the potential economic ripple effects and stressed the need to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to the special relationship it has with both the UK and the EU.
“Our first task has to be to make sure that the economic uncertainty created by these events does not hurt working families here in America,” Clinton said in a statement that drew an indirect comparison to Trump, her likely Republican rival.
“This time of uncertainty only underscores the need for calm, steady, experienced leadership in the White House to protect Americans’ pocketbooks and livelihoods, to support our friends and allies, to stand up to our adversaries, and to defend our interests,” Clinton said.
Republicans sounded the same notes, stressing their respect for the decision as well as the stability of the U.S.-UK relationship. House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, tweeted that “the UK is an indispensable ally of the US, and that special relationship is unaffected by this vote.”
Sen. Richard Burr, a the North Carolina Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said that “while there will be a great deal of discussion in the coming days and weeks about what the ‘Leave’ win means for them and for us, our friends and allies in the UK should know this: we respect their decision, and we stand by them, just as they have always stood by us.”
Others used the vote to make a point about domestic politics. Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican who casts himself as a political outsider intent on reforming a corrupt and moribund Washington, said the result should remind leaders in Washington and elsewhere that “our citizens are dissatisfied with stagnant economies, declining wages, uncontrolled migration, rising crime, and terror attacks at home.”
“It’s time to abandon the failed policies of the past and solve the real problems of the present,” Cotton said. He added that the U.S. should now begin free-trade discussions with the UK, an issue that came up during Obama’s April visit to London.
At the time, Obama had suggested that the UK would pay for a “no” vote economically, getting less preferential trade consideration, and that security ties might be affected as well.
“I think it’s fair to say that maybe some point down the line, there might be a UK-U.S. trade agreement, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon, because our focus is in negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done,” Obama said on April 22.
“The UK is going to be in the back of the queue,” the President added, “not because we don’t have a special relationship, but because, given the heavy lift on any trade agreement, us having access to a big market with a lot of countries — rather than trying to do piecemeal trade agreements — is hugely inefficient.”
Trump seized on that to claim that Obama may have pushed voters to vote against staying in the EU, and knocked him for his comments that the UK would be at the back of the line.
“A lot of people don’t like him,” Trump said of Obama. “His recommendation perhaps caused it to fail.”
Trump, who backed the “leave” campaign, said Friday that, “I was actually very surprised that President Obama would’ve come over here and he would’ve been so bold as to tell the people over here what to do.”
Trump also accused Clinton of opposing the Brexit “because Obama wanted it” and slammed his understanding of the public mood.
With Europe facing unprecedented terrorist attacks this year, Obama also touched in April on security, noting that global challenges require “collective action,” and that the vote’s outcome “is a matter of deep interest to the United States because it affects our prospects as well.”
The U.S. “wants a strong United Kingdom as a partner,” he said, in part because of the leverage the UK can bring to bear inside the EU, with which the U.S. cooperates on a vast array of issues, from the Iran nuclear deal to climate change, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and stability in Asia.
“The United Kingdom is at its best when it’s helping to lead a strong Europe,” Obama said during his London visit.
On Friday, Obama made clear that despite the vote, “the United Kingdom and the European Union will remain indispensable partners of the United States even as they begin negotiating their ongoing relationship to ensure continued stability, security, and prosperity for Europe, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the world.”
Speaking in Washington, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the U.S. would help to ensure the UK exit, expected to take about two years, goes smoothly. He also stressed the special U.S. ties to the UK, and then added a point on many minds.
“For sure,” Blinken said, “it’s going to be a complicated process.”
