British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and US President Donald Trump,PHOTO:REUTERS
LONDON: British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called for US President Donald Trump to be welcomed to the UK, warning Sunday that resisting a visit risked damaging his country's national interest.
A day ahead of Johnson welcoming his US counterpart Rex Tillerson to Britain for talks, Johnson said postponing any Trump trip would be acting against the UK's "single most extraordinary economic relationship".
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"Donald Trump is the elected president of the world's greatest and most powerful democracy -- and a country that also happens to be our closest ally," Johnson wrote in The Sunday Telegraph newspaper.
He said critics of a Trump visit were ignorant of Britain's economic interests.
"In opposing the visit of the president of the United States to this country, they risk actually damaging the national interest."
Johnson rejected claims that Trump was presiding over an "isolationist America".
He said Trump's administration deserved "respect and recognition" rather than "infantile denigration".
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