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'Should've listen to me': Trump says Brexit debacle could be avoided if May heeded his advice
US president and self-proclaimed dealmaker Donald Trump has disparaged UK PM Theresa May's negotiating skills, saying that Britain could have been spared the hot mess that is the Brexit process, if only she had listened to him.
May might have breathed a sigh of relief on Thursday, when British MPs voted in favor of the government motion to ask the EU to extend Article 50 and delay Brexit until June 30, after two days of heavy defeats in parliament. However, that does not mean her woes are over as no consensus has been reached over the Brexit deal, with MPs rejecting to ratify what May had negotiated with the EU and the EU ruling out revising the deal, which in its latest form included binding assurances on the so-called Irish 'backstop.'
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Trump, who used to hail the Brexit vote as "brave and brilliant", commending the Britons for "taking back control" of their country, has found a simple explanation why the whole thing has been going awry since then.
That's because May hadn't listened to his advice, Trump implied.
"But I gave the prime minister my ideas on how to negotiate it. And I think you would've been successful. She didn't listen to that, and that's fine," the US President said.
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Trump, a co-author of "Trump: The Art of the Deal", did not elaborate on what exactly he would do to smooth things over with the EU, only saying that he had told May what to do, but she apparently neglected his wisdom and is now paying the price.
"But she has her own way of doing it. She is — she's got her own way of doing it. That's OK," Trump said.
Trump has doubted May's negotiation skills before. In November, he said the divorce agreement with the EU curtails the UK's ability to strike a trade deal with the US, calling it a "great deal for the EU."
While styling himself as a master of deal-making, Trump has not shown a great record of reaching agreements so far in his presidency. Having dragged the US into a record-breaking government shutdown over the multi-billion border wall project he had promised his voters, he ultimately failed to secure the funds, and is now having to resort to his veto powers in order to defy both the Democrat-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate and push through his national emergency declaration which will allow him to get the money anyway.
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