Trump to travel to UK later this year, but not for state visit

January 26, 2018 20:30

Donald Trump will visit the United Kingdom in the second half of this year for a working visit agreed between UK officials and the US president's team at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Downing Street said today.

The plans follow a meeting between Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May on the sidelines of the summit yesterday.

"The PM and President concluded by asking officials to work together on finalising the details of a visit by the President to the UK later this year," Downing Street said.

The visit will not take the form of a formal state visit, which involves a ceremonial welcome from Queen Elizabeth II and a state banquet at Buckingham Palace.

The invitation for a state visit had been extended during a Washington DC visit by Theresa May in January 2017 but has since been the subject of much controversy, with Opposition parties in the UK insisting that the US President does not deserve such pomp and ceremony.

The meeting between the two leaders in Switzerland was seen as crucial after Trump had suddenly cancelled plans of a working visit to open the new US Embassy building in London next month.

While ostensibly he blamed the previous Barack Obama led US government for a bad decision on selling off the older US Embassy building for "peanuts", the cancellation was widely seen as a sign of strain in UK-US ties following the US Presidents re-tweets of videos from a far-right UK group -- Britain First.

Trump sought to quash those rumours by expressing his "love" for the UK and saying relations between the two countries remain strong.

"I have a tremendous respect for the Prime Minister and the job shes doing and I think the feeling is mutual from the standpoint of liking each other a lot. That was a little bit of a false rumour out there, I just wanted to correct it," Trump told reporters.

"We love your country," he said, adding that the US and UK were "joined at the hip" on military matters.

Later, in an interview with Britains ITV channel, he said he was prepared to apologise for retweeting posts from Britain First. -- Aditi Khanna/PTI

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