'Do you know who this is?' Donald Trump's bizarre greeting at G7 summit
Despite offering his support for Boris Johnson and stating he is the “right man for the job” of delivering Brexit, Donald Trump stunned photographers with a bizarre opening question about his British counterpart on Sunday.
“Do you know who this is?” the US president said, pointing to the new British prime minister.
“Does everybody know?” he followed up.
Many were puzzled with the strange introduction as the pair fronted the media at the G7 summit in Biarritz, France before Mr Trump went on to hail Mr Johnson.
“He needs no advice. He is the right man for the job. I've been saying that for a long time. It didn't make your predecessor very happy."
But Mr Trump’s praise wasn’t the talking point online, with a wave of ridicule on Twitter for the pair following the bizarre moment.
British Labour politician Andrew Adonis led the scorning comments, continuing his highly-critical stance on Mr Johnson.
“Do you know who this is? Someone as bad as me!’” he tweeted.
‘Do you know who this is? Someone as bad as me!’ pic.twitter.com/6YFHVXkUD3
— Andrew Adonis (@Andrew_Adonis) August 25, 2019
“Two clowns at the circus,” another person savagely wrote.
Trump and Johnson discuss US-UK trade deal
Mr Trump promised a “very big trade deal” between the two nations after the UK no longer has the EU “anchor around their ankle”.
The US president claimed his long held admiration for Mr Johnson had rankled with previous prime minister Theresa May, saying it “didn’t make your predecessor very happy”.
The two leaders met at the summit to talk about the possibility of a UK-US trade deal once Britain has left the European Union.
"We're going to do a very big trade deal, bigger than we've ever had with the UK and now at some point they won't have the obstacle, they won't have the anchor around their ankle, because that's what they have,” Mr Trump said.
However, Mr Johnson has warned that a trade deal with the US will not be "plain sailing" and has raised a series of areas where he wants concessions from Washington.
"Talking of the anchor, Donald, what we want is for our ships to take freight, say, from New York to Boston, which for the moment they're not able to do,” Mr Johnson said.
The president said he wanted a deal done "quickly" because in the past he had been "stymied" under Mrs May and while the UK was still negotiating Brexit.
"This is a different person and this is a person that's going to be a great prime minister, in my opinion. He's going to be a fantastic prime minister, I can tell you,” he added.
The prime minister also warned Mr Trump against escalating his trade war with China.
"We are in favour of trade peace on the whole," he said as the two leaders and their teams had a working breakfast at the Hotel du Palais, where there was a menu of scrambled eggs and veal sausages.
The two leaders agreed to set up a working group focused on closer economic links.
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