Theresa May has been urged to adopt a strictly businesslike stance with Donald Trump when she meets him at the White House on Friday, otherwise she risks creating a fawning relationship with an unpredictable American president that could turn toxic in the way that it did for Tony Blair in the wake of the Iraq war.



The advice was given by Stewart Wood, the former overseas adviser to Gordon Brown who, as prime minister, went to great lengths to adopt a transactional approach in his relations with George W Bush in the wake of Blair’s era of intimacy.

Other diplomats advised May not to shirk marking out the points of difference during her meeting with the new US president, including over the future of multilateral bodies, such as the United Nations and Nato.

The UK foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, promised on Thursday that May would be spelling out “in capital letters” how important she regards continuing American support for Nato, an institution described as obsolete by Trump. Johnson said the UK would make the case for the Iran nuclear deal, even though it has been described as horrible by the president.

The prospect of a triumphant visit by May underlining the endurance of the “special relationship” has been made more complex by a series of remarks by Trump in the past 48 hours including claims that torture worked and demands that refugees from some Muslim countries should be banned.

Lord Wood warned that May had to keep an appropriate distance for her own political survival. “The first pictures of May with Trump will be played over and over in her premiership and, if she is seen to have been too fawning or chummy by his side, it will rebound on her,” he said. “The last thing she needs is a press conference in which he speaks for 30 minutes. It would be a hostage to fortune.

“Her demeanour has to be professional and that applies to the style of the meetings, the clothes that are worn and the handshakes. Everything she does has to be seen in the context of protecting the British national interest, rather than in any emotional context or personal chemistry.”

A former senior Foreign Office diplomat also issued a warning, saying the prime minister would have to be “very careful given what he has said about torture, refugees, protectionism and withdrawal of funding from the UN, all of which run completely contrary to UK foreign policy. On the other hand, it is axiomatic that every UK premier must have a close relationship with an American president. There is no choice, so it is a very thin line she has to tread.

“It looks like Nato, and the commitment to article 5 [which enshrines the principle of collective defence], will be the permitted point of difference and persuasion. In truth, it is quite safe territory since James Mattis and Rex Tillerson [the defence secretary and secretary of state respectively] agree with the UK, and Trump has said some silly things, but they have not gone very far. But she has to be careful how she disagrees.”

Other observers, such as the former UK ambassador to Washington Sir Nigel Sheinwald, have recommended that she should base her appeal to Trump about the value of Nato on the shared commercial interest the US has in European security and the extent to which the American and European economies are integrated. An appeal to the pocket and not to the heart may be more persuasive, since Trump is convinced the US has been taken for a ride by its allies.

A second foreign office veteran said Trump was “a very instinctual person, and some issues, such as Israel, define whether he is for or against you. So it is important that tone is right”.

There are some signs that the Foreign Office is already acting on that advice and shifting its tone, if not its policy, on Israel’s illegal settlements. Johnson, speaking on Thursday, accused the French of staging a pointless Paris conference on the Middle East without Israel or the Palestinians, describing the event as akin to “Hamlet without the Prince.”

Johnson acknowledged that the UK was largely in the dark on critical issues such as US plans for cooperation with Russia in Syria. “We need to understand exactly where the White House is coming from,” he said. “We need to understand how they see the end game here and we need to help shape that conversation.”

The Foreign Office believes the Trump team is seeking closer relations with Russia over Syria but may not have fully understood the extent to which a deal that keeps Bashar al-Assad in power may end up advancing Iranian interests, not just in Syria but elsewhere in the region. Hostility to Iran is at the beating heart of Trump’s Middle East thinking.

Hovering over this analysis remains the assumption that Trump’s thinking can be shaped by foreign leaders and Washington bureaucracies, just as the priorities of a malleable minister can be rearranged by the British civil service. In other words, a version of the normal rules of transatlantic dialogue will be re-imposed.

But some diplomats stress that Trump is unlike any previous postwar president and the forces that will ultimately shape his thinking are yet to be discovered.

Peter Westmacott, another former UK ambassador to Washington, has been among those to notice the old rules may genuinely have been torn up. “Quite often after the election the winner quickly becomes a bit of a centrist, someone who appeals to all the voters and whose approval rating goes through the roof before their inauguration. We have not seen that. We have seen the continuation of Trump the campaigner.”

The worry for the UK will be if Trump just never stops campaigning.