Team Trump descends on London to a mixed reception
American billionaires have often fallen in love with England. From John-Paul Getty to Michael Bloomberg, they have found a second home in London or the English countryside. Donald Trump was never one of them. He hates to travel, and will go to great lengths to end each day in one of his own beds. For a man often dubbed a socialite when he frequented New York’s party scene in the Eighties, he has always been oddly anti-social.
While several British developers, such as the Candy brothers, seem to have learned from the Trump school of high glitz and aggressive marketing, Trump himself has never owned a property in London, sticking to the more sedate world of Scottish golf courses. He has never seemed interested in having the English like him.
His visit this week to London, then, should be a test. The fact that it has taken so long is testament to both his own controversial presidency and the British government’s indecision about what kind of relationship to strike with this most unusual American leader.
The Prime Minister, Theresa May, scampered off to Washington soon after Trump entered office but she hasn’t been able to forge a close relationship with Trump. She has been comprehensively lapped by France’s President Emmanuel Macron, whom Trump seems genuinely to like and respect. May, in his mind, lacks the two qualities he most admires in a politician: brute strength and low cunning.
Among politicians it’s the Brexiteers who have come closest to embracing Trump. They see a kinship in his robust demagoguery. As a presidential candidate, Trump said he thought Brexit would be great for Britain, and Ukip’s Nigel Farage was one of the first non-Americans to visit him in Trump Tower after he was elected President in 2016.
Boris Johnson used to be critical of Trump but he has come around to him. Last month, the Foreign Secretary told a meeting at the Institute of Directors in London that he was “increasingly admiring of Donald Trump. I have become more and more convinced that there is method in his madness.” He added: “Imagine Trump doing Brexit. He’d go in bloody hard… There’d be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos. Everyone would think he’d gone mad. But actually, you might get somewhere. It’s a very, very good thought.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg wrote in early May that post-Brexit the US will be even more important to the UK. “It is our national good fortune that the President with whom we will develop this new arrangement is Mr Trump,” he wrote, comparing Trump’s election to the Brexit vote. “He appealed to voters left behind by the metropolitan elite and he exudes confidence about his own nation and a determination not to be a manager of decline, which also inspires the Brexiteers.”
"To make Trump feel at home, Rupert Murdoch might be invited to dine with him - they speak every day"
In the media, the most voluble Trump supporter has been Piers Morgan , who got to know Trump when he won Celebrity Apprentice 10 years ago.
When Trump meets the Queen at Windsor Castle he is said to want to conjure memories of President Reagan’s visit, when he rode horses with the Queen. Trump doesn’t ride anything but a golf cart but perhaps a pensive walk might be the photo-op he is after. One topic to be avoided is the decision by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex not to invite him to their wedding. The Duchess has publicly called him “misogynistic” and politically divisive.
Read More
The MCs for Trump’s trip will be the US Ambassador, Woody Johnson, and his wife Suzanne. Johnson and Trump go back a long way. Both men came from wealthy New York families but took their own distinctive paths. Trump brought glitz and incessant publicity to a humdrum property empire. Johnson’s great-grandfather founded Johnson & Johnson, the maker of everything from Band-Aids to cancer drugs. He now owns the New York Jets.
If they want to make Trump feel at home when he arrives on Thursday, they might invite Rupert Murdoch, one of Trump’s closest advisers. The two men are said to speak at least once a week. Bill Shine, Murdoch’s former lieutenant at the conservative Fox News, has just taken a job as Trump’s director of communications. Murdoch should be in especially good spirits as he watches Disney and Comcast drive up the bidding for his company, 21st Century Fox, potentially adding billions to the eventual price.
The most interesting intersection of Trump’s personal and political interests will be the dinner being thrown in his honour at Blenheim Palace, attended by British and US business leaders.
Trump is no historian but he has shown a genuine interest in Winston Churchill, who was born at Blenheim and was descended from the first Duke of Marlborough. The current Duke of Marlborough has said he is one of Trump’s “greatest supporters”. But the family is divided. Last October, Trump tweeted: “United Kingdom crime rises 13% annually amid spread of radical Islamic terror. Not good, we must keep America safe!” To which Sir Nicholas Soames MP, a grandson of Churchill, tweeted: “#Thenfixguncontrolyoudafttwerp.”
The connections between the US and Blenheim, though, go back to the 9th Duke who, out of financial desperation, married the railroad heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt in 1895. She sobbed all the way to her wedding, a few blocks from what is now Trump Tower, as the marriage was forced on her by her ambitious mother.
The most significant living connection between the US and Blenheim runs through Trump’s Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and his wife, Hilary Geary. The Rosses and Trumps live near each other in Palm Beach and are close. Mrs Ross used to chair a group of wealthy Americans called the Friends of Blenheim, who would give money to the palace.
The 11th Duke of Marlborough would spend at least six weeks every winter in his flat at the starchy Everglades Club in Palm Beach. The locals embraced him as a Wodehousian oddity.
The Duke’s fourth wife, the former Lily Mahtani, didn’t care for it. She told Vanity Fair in 2011: “I don’t like the social scene there as much as he does. They’re his friends. A table full of just rich people — it’s so boring.”
The connection, though, survived, through Mrs Ross and Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill, the interior decorator and sister of the current Duke. Last year they went together to Trump’s club, Mar-a-Lago, for a party attended by the President and First Lady to raise money for the Red Cross. Mr Ross also has close business connections to London via the steel baron Lakshmi Mittal. In 2004, he sold Mittal his company, International Steel Group, and served on the board of Arcelor Mittal until he joined the Trump administration.
The Financial Times has reported that business executives are divided on whether or not to attend the Blenheim dinner. The guest list includes both British and Americans, from the energy tycoon Sir Jim Ratcliffe of INEOS and Emma Walmsley, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, to Larry Fink of BlackRock and Alex Gorsky of Johnson & Johnson. Some see attending as a necessity, a mark of respect for the US, and an opportunity perhaps to learn more about Trump’s unfurling trade wars.
Others will take the line laid down by digital entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox, who said: “I understand why the Government has to entertain Trump but I certainly don’t want to.”