Britain has never had a better friend in the White House than Donald Trump. FDR may have bailed out Britain in its struggle against German imperialism, but the bailout carried the highest possible price: the surrender of Britain’s empire, and loans that weren’t paid off until 2006. By contrast, Trump asks for nothing that Britain isn’t already asking for: economic and political support as it escapes from the latter-day German imperialism of the European Union. And Trump is giving Britain much more.
By omission as much as commission, Trump is cleaning up the messes that Britain left behind as it lost its empire. The British tell themselves that they had no choice to drop their imperial obligations after 1945, that they were bankrupt in victory and the Americans didn’t like empires. This isn’t the full story. In truth, the British had been behaving shabbily in the Three I’s — Ireland, India and Israel — long before they were bankrupt, and with bloody consequences for the locals.
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