As far as the U.S. ambassador to the U.K. is concerned, it’s all water under the bridge.
Asked on Friday’s BBC’s “Today” program what Donald Trump and Boris Johnson’s relationship will be like, the U.S. president’s U.K. envoy Woody Johnson said: “I think it’s going to be sensational.”
Pressed on whether the notoriously thin-skinned Trump knows that the new British prime minister had previously described Trump as not fit for office and if he would hold those comments against him, the American ambassador said: “Donald Trump is going to say what he says, what he wants to say … And I think Boris — he respects Boris for the same. I mean Boris is going to call it as he sees it.”
In 2015, Johnson — who was then the mayor of London — said Trump was “betraying a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him, frankly, unfit to hold the office of president of the United States.” The comment came in response to Trump claiming some parts of London were no-go zones where “police are afraid for their own lives.”
But the American ambassador told the BBC that the U.S.-U.K. relationship “is going to be increasingly important for this country and our country,” and so it would be better to “look at the positives” rather than the things the two disagree on.
“I think the president is going to try to move the ball forward,” the ambassador said. “The U.K. is our most important ally, both in security and also in prosperity. So you’re very important, and he knows that. He’s made some comments about a free-trade agreement, and putting the U.K. at the front of the line … I think that’s what he’s focused on.”
Asked whether a future free-trade agreement would be affected by the uncertainty of a potential no-deal Brexit, the ambassador said “no, I don’t think that’s imperative” to have information about the nature of Britain’s future relationship with the EU in order to strike a U.S.-U.K. agreement.