US president’s intervention is likely to weaken May’s hand when she is seeking to get deal approved by parliament

Donald Trump has delivered a weighty blow to Theresa May’s hopes of steering her Brexit deal through parliament, saying it sounded like a “great deal for the EU” that would stop the UK trading with the US.

Trump was speaking to reporters outside the White House when he was asked about the deal May struck with the EU’s other 27 heads of state and government on Sunday.

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“Sounds like a great deal for the EU,” the president said. “I think we have to take a look at, seriously, whether or not the UK is allowed to trade. Because, you know, right now, if you look at the deal, they may not be able to trade with us … I don’t think that the prime minister meant that. And, hopefully, she’ll be able to do something about that.”

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Trump’s intervention caught Downing Street off-guard and is likely to weaken May’s hand at a time when she is seeking to get the deal approved by parliament, where she faces determined resistance from 89 Tory backbenchers who argue the deal does not secure sufficient freedom of action for the UK. A vote is due on 11 December after a five-day debate.

A No 10 spokesman argued that Trump’s take on Brexit was wrong: “The political declaration we have agreed with the EU is very clear we will have an independent trade policy so that the UK can sign trade deals with countries around the world – including with the US.”

The spokesman pointed out that the US trade representative had already begun a consultation on a future trade deal with the UK, again suggesting Trump’s analysis was incorrect. “We have already been laying the groundwork for an ambitious agreement with the US through our joint working groups, which have met five times so far,” he said.

It was unclear what Trump meant by the UK being unable to trade with the US, although some suggested he was referring to the fact that the UK would not be able to strike trade deals with the US after the Brexit deal is concluded because of its terms.

Under the deal the UK will not be able to pursue an independent trade policy during the 21-month transition period after Brexit, during which it will be in effect an EU member state without any representation in the bloc’s decision-making institutions.

In the highly likely scenario that a EU-UK trade deal is not close to ratification by July 2020, the EU and UK will jointly decide at this so-called “rendezvous” point, whether to extend the transition period for up to two years, again precluding such a deal with Washington.

Brussels and Downing Street could alternatively allow the “backstop” solution for avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland to come into force in January 2021.

Such a scenario would see the whole of the UK staying in a customs union with Brussels under which it would not be able to pursue any trade deal covering goods – although the UK would be free to seek agreements in the services sector.

Last year, the US was the second largest market for EU exports of goods after China while British exports are worth around £100bn a year, more than twice as much as to any other country.

May has repeatedly insisted that the UK would be able to negotiate and conclude trade deals with countries around the world after Brexit, and she and other ministers had made no secret of the fact they hoped in particular to reach an agreement with the US – the world’s largest economy.

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Trump has, however, been seeking a trade deal with the EU, and has been threatening tariffs on the European car industry in order to attain such a prize. The UK would likely be covered by such an EU-US deal. Brussels has a policy of pushing its new trade deal partners to allow countries such as Turkey, with whom the bloc is in a customs union, to enjoy similar beneficial terms to its member states.

Trump has had an uneasy relationship with May, and made no secret of his support for Nigel Farage and the British hard right. He feted Farage on the campaign trail and cast himself in the same radical outsider role, tweeting in August 2016: “They will soon be calling me MR BREXIT!”

After Downing Street criticised the president for retweeting three videos posted by a UK far-right group in November 2017, Trump retorted: “@Theresa_May, don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine!”