50 Britain The EconomistJanuary 20th 2018
T
HE opening of the new American embassy should have been
the highlight of London’s diplomatic season. The American
president himself had been lined up to cut the ribbon on the bil-
lion-dollar building. The media had been primed to produce arti-
cles about the embassy’s clever features (a reflective pool that
doubles as a defensive moat!) and eye-catching design. But then
Donald Trump pulled out of the ceremony on the grounds that
the new embassy was in an “off location”, and, prompted by Em-
manuel Macron’s offer to lend Britain the Bayeux tapestry, the
media shifted its attention to the wonders of the entente cordiale.
It is tempting to see the embassy fiasco as a metaphor for the
state of Anglo-American relations. The special relationship is
more important now than it has been since the fall of the Berlin
Wall. The obvious reason for this is Brexit: there would be no bet-
ter way to get Britain’s post-European future off to a good start
than to strike a trade deal with the world’s biggest economy.
There is also a subtler reason. Britain and America are both liberal
champions that have been shaken by populism. Strengthening
their ties, which were forged in wars againstNazism and then
communism, isa good way of reminding both countries of their
common liberal heritage.
But at the same time the special relationship has never been
more imperilled. It wasshaken bythe Iraq war, which associated
the relationship not with national liberation but with lies, incom-
petence and strategic disaster. Now it is being rattled again by the
accidental axis of Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn.
Ever since Theresa May barged her way to the front of the
queue of foreign leaders waiting to pay court to the newly elected
president, holding his hand and promising a state visit with all
the trimmings, Mr Trump hasbeen nothingbut trouble. He has
promised to provide the prime minister with her all-important
trade deal, but has done nothing to turn hot air into boring old
policy. He has thrown a succession of verbal hand-grenades that
have forced Mrs May to put the state visit on the back burner, ret-
weeting inflammatory videos endorsed by the far-right Britain
First and insulting everybody who lives south of the River
Thames, which includes the author of this column. The special
relationship makes sense only if it is undergirded by shared val-
ues. Yet Mr Trump has made such a habitof trashing liberal val-ues that 75% of Britons don’t trust his handling of world affairs.
As for Mr Corbyn, who hopes to lead Labour into office by the
end of the year, his foreign policy might be summed up by the
phrase: “Whatever America is for, I’m against it.” He has fulsome-
ly supported anti-American leaders such as Venezuela’s Hugo
Chávez and Cuba’s Castro brothers. He has made a habit of ap-
pearing on anti-American television stations such as Russia To-
day and Iran’s state news channel. His chief adviser, Seumas
Milne, devoted much of his journalistic career at the Guardian to
fulminating against American imperialism.
What can be done to revive the special relationship in such
difficult circumstances? Part of the answer lies in patience. How-
ever large they loom today, Messrs Trump and Corbyn will even-
tually be gone. Part of it lies in workarounds—that is, dealing di-
rectly with sensible people like H.R. McMaster, America’s
national security adviser. And part lies in opportunism. The rela-
tionship’s friends need to seize on whatever shows it in a good
light, in order to counteract the damage that is being done. But the
most important answer lies in realism.
One problem for the special relationship is that people expect
too much from it. Tony Blair was only the most recent prime min-
ister who persuaded himself that he could act as Greece to Ameri-
ca’s Rome. He ended up acting not as a Platonic guardian but as a
rather tawdry cheerleader. Right-wing Tories such as Liam Fox,
the secretary for international trade, want to use America as a
counterbalance to Euro-socialism and to use a trade deal with
America as a building block for the “Anglosphere”. ButAmerican
trade negotiators are some of the toughestin the business. And
the United States is a global power with an increasingly diverse
population. America means a lot more to Britain than Britain
means to America.The specialest ever, I guarantee it
But it is also dangerous to expect too little. Since the Iraq debacle,
it has been fashionable to argue that the special relationship is a
dangerous illusion sustained by Britain’snostalgic desire to
punch above its weight and America’s liking for yes-men. This is
mistaken. The Anglo-American relationship is special because it
is both deeper and broader than almost anyother bilateral one.
Deeper because America has borrowed so much from Britain,
from common law, to joint-stock companies, to a version of the
English language. Broader because the countrieshave intimate
relations on every front, from economic, to cultural, to military.
The intelligence relationship is particularly close, with the two
countries sharing sensitive information and co-operating on new
threats such as cyber-terrorism. The flap over Mr Trump’s no-
show is actually proof of the closeness of the relationship. The
president is upset about the delays to his visit because he is fixat-
ed on a theme-park view of Britain as a land of royal pageants and
golf clubs. The British public are adamant that he shouldn’t come
because they see American politics as an extension of their own.
The proper way to deal with the special relationship is not to
romanticise orrubbish it, but to re-galvanise it. It has been repeat-
edly reinvented as communism, and then terrorism, took over
from Nazism asthe main threat to the world order. It needs to be
updated once again. The British and Americansmust recognise
that they share common histories and ideals that are far too deep
to be dislodged by a pair of popinjays. And theymust realise that
they have a common duty to cherish those ideas for a world in
which authoritarian populists are on the march. 7Still special?
This is a bad time for the Anglo-American relationship to be under strainBagehot