This is a bad time for the special relationship to be under strain

THE 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 billion-dollar building. The media had been primed to produce articles 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 Emmanuel 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 better 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 against Nazism and then communism, is a 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 was shaken by the Iraq war, which associated the relationship not with national liberation but with lies, incompetence 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 has been nothing but 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, retweeting 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 values. Yet Mr Trump has made such a habit of trashing liberal values 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 fulsomely supported anti-American leaders such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Cuba’s Castro brothers. He has made a habit of appearing on anti-American television stations such as Russia Today 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. However large they loom today, Messrs Trump and Corbyn will eventually be gone. Part of it lies in workarounds—that is, dealing directly with sensible people like H.R. McMaster, America’s national security adviser. And part lies in opportunism. The relationship’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 minister who persuaded himself that he could act as Greece to America’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”. But American trade negotiators are some of the toughest in 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’s nostalgic 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 any other 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 countries have 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 fixated 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 or rubbish it, but to re-galvanise it. It has been repeatedly reinvented as communism, and then terrorism, took over from Nazism as the main threat to the world order. It needs to be updated once again. The British and Americans must recognise that they share common histories and ideals that are far too deep to be dislodged by a pair of popinjays. And they must realise that they have a common duty to cherish those ideas for a world in which authoritarian populists are on the march.