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This week we will see two landmark moments for the intertwined causes of Brexit and Trumpism.

Tomorrow Theresa May will make her long-awaited speech setting out her ambitions for the Brexit negotiations.

Then on Friday the Presidency of Donald Trump will move from the stuff of liberal nightmares to technicolour reality with the US inauguration .

To set the scene, there is an interview with Mr Trump by Michael Gove in today’s Times .

You could argue there is no better metaphor for our post Brexit relations with the United States than sending a patsy, liable to swoon at the merest hint of preferment, to question the president elect.

Once the smelling salts have done their work, Mr Gove will note that Trump’s wish to do a “quick and fair” trade deal with Britain was encouraging but noticeably lacking in detail.

We also know that the president elect’s promises, such as building a wall or releasing his tax returns, can be unreliable.

Of more concern were Trump’s comments on Germany, Europe and Nato.

(Image: Getty Images)

His relish at the prospect of more countries leaving the EU, his apparent indifference to the military alliance and derision for Angela Merkel would have been music to Vladimir Putin’s ears.

The Russian leader is the main beneficiary if the twin foundations of post war security in Europe - the EU and Nato - are weakened.

It also speaks volumes about Trump’s base view of the world that he described the refugees given shelter by Mrs Merkel as “illegals.”

Both Trump’s campaign and the EU referendum fed on the antipathy towards the political establishment, a groundswell encapsulated by Gove’s now infamous, if misquoted, line that people have had enough of experts, and benefited from the anger in former industrial areas at the consequences of globalisation such as job insecurity, stagnant wages and inequality.

Yet the more thoughtful Brexiteers, despite having won the campaign with the claim they would take back control, are anxious not to be presented as isolationist little Englanders.

While Trump revels in his America First strategy and boasts of tearing down free trade deals and constructing walls, material or metaphorical ones, the message from the Government is Brexit offers the chance for the UK to be truly free trading nation.

This is why they celebrate with exaggerated enthusiasm when people such as the New Zealand PM promise a new post-Brexit partnership with the UK.

The inconvenient truth is that our trade with New Zealand is worth around £1billion a year, a fraction of the amount we trade with Germany, the Netherlands, France or even Portugal.

Improving trade with New Zealand, welcome as it is, will count for nothing if we cannot strike a free trade deal with our European friends.

This is not impossible, and as noted last week, the mood music is increasingly encouraging.

(Image: Reuters)

The alternative, as Philip Hammond revealed at the weekend , is Britain having to abandon the European economic model for a more competitive but less altruistic American one.

Hammond clearly does not want to go down this route and his words were a warning rather than a roadmap.

He was presenting a choice between a country with a strong social security system and protection for workers or a nation that cuts taxes, reduces welfare and blitzes workers’ rights.

Mrs May must decided whose side she is on, Mr Hammond’s or those who fly to the States for audiences with Donald Trump.

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