“I think we have a lot of foes. I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade,” Trump said in the interview. “Now, you wouldn’t think of the European Union, but they’re a foe. Russia is a foe in certain respects. China is a foe economically; certainly they are a foe. But that doesn’t mean they are bad.”<doc-sep>When United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May and Donald Trump met Friday, the US president had a “suggestion” on handling Brexit negotiations. May revealed what it was Sunday: He told her to sue the European Union. “He told me I should sue the EU — not go into negotiations. Sue them,” May said in an interview with the BBC. “Actually, no, we’re going into negotiations with them.” During a joint press conference on Friday, both May and Trump referred to advice Trump had given to May regarding her handling of Brexit. Trump said he gave May a “suggestion” but she “found it maybe too brutal.” Still, he said he thought she might eventually go with it. “If they don’t make the right deal, she might very well do what I suggested that she might want to do,” he said. During the same conference, Trump said he wouldn’t scrap negotiation altogether. “You can’t walk away, because if she walks away, that means she’s…stuck,” he said. But, he clarified, “she can do what my suggestion was.” As May has since revealed, that advice is to sue. It’s not clear how the UK suing the EU would really work. The BBC points out that it’s hard to really see any grounds for a lawsuit — the EU and UK haven’t struck a final deal on Brexit yet, and the UK can’t exactly sue for a breach of an agreement that doesn’t exist: The UK and the EU have not reached a Brexit agreement yet, so there can be no action for breach of that agreement. Parties to a negotiation are under what are known as “procedural duties” — for instance, to act in good faith. But it is very difficult to bring an action, within a negotiation, on that basis. Some would say that even attempting to do so would seriously harm the negotiation. During the BBC interview, May emphasized that beyond Trump’s lawsuit suggestion, he also told her not to walk away from talks during the press conference. “I want to be able to sit down to negotiate the best deal for Britain,” she said. May came to power shortly after the Brexit vote in 2016 and has taken a more moderate stance than some figures in the pro-Brexit camp. Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, Brexit minister David Davis and Brexit undersecretary Steve Baker, earlier this month quit in protest of May’s actions. Last week, May released a white paper outlining a plan for the UK to exit the EU. Trump has often taken an antagonistic position on the EU. He has attacked the longtime ally on trade and immigration and has criticized NATO, which consists of North American and European members. Donald Trump is really into lawsuits It’s not necessarily a surprise that Trump would suggest May sue the EU — the president has quite an affinity for lawsuits and has used the tactic often throughout his career. A USA Today tracker found that Trump has been involved in more than 4,000 lawsuits since the 1970s, and Bloomberg identified 1,300 legal cases since 2000 alone. Many of the lawsuits are mundane consequences of doing business — actions against gambling debtors at his casinos, employment disputes. Others, however, are more serious, such as the class-action lawsuit filed against Trump University. Trump often threatens to sue his opponents and enemies, though he doesn’t always follow through. During the 2016 campaign, for example, he threatened to sue the New York Times over its reporting on allegations of sexual misconduct against him and said he would sue his female accusers. He still has not. It’s unlikely the UK will wind up suing the EU, either.<doc-sep>
British Prime Minister Theresa May said Sunday that President Trump Donald TrumpTrump lashes out after grand jury seated for New York criminal probe Schumer tees up vote on Jan. 6 commission bill Senators struggle to save Jan. 6 commission MORE told her to take legal action against the European Union (EU) rather than enter negotiations over Brexit. “He told me I should sue the EU, not go into negotiations,” she said during a BBC interview. The comments come after a contentious visit from the U.S. president, during which he criticized May’s approach to Brexit. ADVERTISEMENT Trump gave an interview to British tabloid The Sun and railed against May’s plan for a “soft” Brexit and warned that it could jeopardize trade between the U.S. and the U.K. “If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the U.K., so it will probably kill the deal,” he told The Sun. He also told the paper that May had ignored his advice on this issue. “I would have done it much differently,” Trump said in the interview. “I actually told Theresa May how to do it, but she didn’t listen to me.” Trump’s interview came after two of May’s Cabinet ministers, Brexit Secretary David Davis and Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, abruptly resigned over opposition to her plan for withdrawing the U.K. from the EU. At a joint press conference with May, Trump appeared to tamp down the criticism, saying that he has no problem with however May decides to move forward with Brexit. “Whatever you’re going to do is OK with us,” he said. “Just make sure we can trade together. That’s all that matters.”