Pompeo takes on growing rift with Brexit Britain
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was set to visit London yesterday to repair a post-Brexit alliance with an old friend whose defiance on China and Iran underscores Washington’s diplomatic isolation.
He arrives in Britain for a 24-hour stopover, en route to Ukraine and Uzbekistan, fresh from the United States unveiling its long delayed Israeli-Palestinian peace plan on Tuesday.
In contrast to much of the hostile global reaction, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government gave the proposals a cautious welcome -- an increasingly rare moment of solidarity in the so-called “special relationship”.
The British premier, who is scheduled to meet Pompeo today, will be eager to present a unified front as he eyes the prospect of a big new trade deal with the US that can fill the void of the UK’s departure from the European Union on Friday.
But Pompeo’s meetings with him and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab threaten to become a damage limitation exercise amid strained transatlantic ties over a number of issues.
Pompeo had been doing his best to convince Johnson that allowing China’s Huawei tech giant to help build Britain’s next-generation 5G network introduced a long-term security threat.
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