After Brexit, Trump sets himself up to be disruptor again

Bloomberg

Donald Trump has spent the past four years lobbing unsolicited advice at British prime ministers on the best path forward for an exit from the European Union and holding out promises of a grand new trans-Atlantic trade alliance. Now that Brexit is official, though, Trump gets to really double down on a role he relishes: that of the geopolitical disruptor.
Just as PM Boris Johnson wants to use talks with the US as a way to increase his leverage in trade discussions with the EU, Trump has made clear he sees a deal with the UK as an irresistible opportunity to poke a finger in the eye of EU he has labeled “worse than China.”
“This deal has the potential to be far bigger and more lucrative than any deal that could be made with the EU,” the American president tweeted about the prospects for a US-UK trade pact the night Johnson sealed his December election win and the fate of Brexit.
For people in Trump’s orbit, a deal with the UK represents an opportunity to strengthen commercial bonds with a country that US administrations and businesses have long seen as a like-minded gateway to Europe.
It’s also a chance to respond to an aggressive expansion of its trade agreements in recent years by the EU that has broadened its influence on the rules governing the flows of everything from cars and cheese to data into new frontiers in Japan, south-east Asia and South America.
Both Trump and Johnson have signalled their desire to do a deal quickly. But there are also significant unanswered questions that appear to make that unlikely.
A plan for Johnson to visit Washington, and potentially launch negotiations as soon as this month, has not been finalised yet. Its timing hinges in part on an expected cabinet reshuffle by Johnson that could see him appoint a new trade minister.
Trump administration officials in recent months have signalled they would like to adopt a phased approach to negotiations, much as they have done with Japan and China. That might allow for quick wins in areas like digital trade, experts say. But the UK negotiation also marks the first chance the president and his team have to build a full trade deal from scratch and officials told members of Congress that their goal was to seal an all-encompassing agreement with the UK rather than a phased one, according to people familiar with the discussion.
Those may be Trump’s intentions, but there are also more immediate questions about the limits of his power over the UK.
That was evident when Johnson’s government announced that it would use equipment provided by China’s Huawei Technologies Co in its new 5G telecommunications network despite aggressive lobbying against such a move by the US, which accuses Huawei of being a conduit for Chinese espionage.
Members of the Trump administration, however, quickly abandoned their threats to isolate the UK and stop sharing
intelligence and turned to praising the strength of the relationship and the possibilities of a new trade deal.