FILE PHOTO - Britain's Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt attends a joint news conference with Finland's Foreign Minister Timo Soini (unseen) in Vantaa, Finland August 14, 2018. LEHTIKUVA/Vesa Moilanen/via REUTERS

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump has not been the isolationist that many feared he would be, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said ahead of his first trip to the United States in the role.

Later on Tuesday Hunt will call on the European Union to follow the United States in extending sanctions on Russia in a speech in Washington, and he said that the United States remained Britain’s closest ally.

“It’s important... whatever the controversies around Donald Trump, to recognize that actually he has not been the isolationist president that many feared he would,” Hunt told BBC radio, in an interview recorded before his departure to Washington.