President Trump says he will no longer deal with the top British diplomat to the United States, after leaked cables reportedly revealed the U.K. ambassador to the U.S. had called him “inept” and “insecure.”
In the cables, published in the Daily Mail Sunday, U.K. Ambassador Kim Darroch specifically criticized the Trump administration’s approach to Iran as “incoherent” and “chaotic.”
Trump tweeted his frustrations today toward Darroch as well as outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May and suggested that he prefers interacting with the queen.
I have been very critical about the way the U.K. and Prime Minister Theresa May handled Brexit. What a mess she and her representatives have created. I told her how it should be done, but she decided to go another way. I do not know the Ambassador, but he is not liked or well….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 8, 2019
….thought of within the U.S. We will no longer deal with him. The good news for the wonderful United Kingdom is that they will soon have a new Prime Minister. While I thoroughly enjoyed the magnificent State Visit last month, it was the Queen who I was most impressed with!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 8, 2019
It’s so far unclear what Trump’s tweets mean in a practical sense, and it’s unclear whether he consulted the State Department before severing a relationship with the ambassador of America’s strongest ally.
Trump publicly praised May in a press conference for her leadership in dealing with Brexit during his trip to London in June.
In confidential memos to his government dating from 2017 to the present, Darroch said reports of in-fighting in the White House were “mostly true” and last month described confusion within the administration over Trump’s decision to call off a military strike on Iran.
“We don’t really believe this Administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept,” Darroch wrote in one memo.
Ministers said the government did not agree with Darroch, although May’s spokesman said she had full faith in him.
Foreign minister Jeremy Hunt, one of two men who might replace May by the end of the month, said: “I have made it clear that I don’t share the ambassador’s assessment of either the U.S. administration or relations with the U.S. administration, but I do defend his right to make that frank assessment.”
He promised “serious consequences” for whoever had leaked the memos.
Darroch has served as U.K. ambassador to the U.S. since January 2016.