So much for sweet summer memories.
President Trump made two trips to Britain in the last four months, once to visit his Scottish golf resorts in June and a second time last week, when he was feted by King Charles III at Windsor Castle. And yet, on Tuesday, Mr. Trump told European leaders at the United Nations, “Your countries are going to hell.”
Mr. Trump didn’t single out Britain, but he didn’t have to. His reference was unmistakable. Mr. Trump said Europe needed to “end the failed experiment of open borders,” echoing a public warning he delivered to Prime Minister Keir Starmer about immigration at the end of his state visit.
The president did not stop there. He also reopened a long-simmering feud with London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, who he suggested, falsely, was seeking to impose Shariah law.
“I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it’s been changed, it’s been so changed,” he said. “Now they want to go to Shariah law. But you are in a different country, you can’t do that.”
It was not clear how Mr. Trump formed his impression of a repressive, incompetently run London: He spent barely 12 hours in the city, overnighting at the baronial residence of the American ambassador in Regent’s Park, before flying by helicopter to Windsor Castle and then to Chequers, Mr. Starmer’s country retreat.
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