UK PM leaves Downing Street for US trip

(26 Jan 2017) British Prime Minister Theresa May left 10 Downing Street on Thursday morning, heading to Washington to become the first foreign leader to meet US President Donald Trump.
May's staff worked feverishly to secure the two-day trip, which includes a meeting with the president at the White House on Friday.
British officials hope it will help cement the UK's place as a pre-eminent American ally and provide proof of what Britons - more often than Americans - call the trans-Atlantic "special relationship."
But May faces the challenge of persuading a president who has vowed to put "America first" of the benefits of free trade with Britain and the vital role of the 28-nation NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) military alliance.
And she must build a working relationship with a populist president whose protectionist outlook and loose way with facts have alarmed many European politicians, including some of May's own allies.
May insists she's up to the task of being America's steadfast, but plain-speaking friend, telling British lawmakers on Wednesday that she was "not afraid to speak frankly to a president of the United States."
In a speech to Republican legislators in Philadelphia on Thursday, May plans to say the trans-Atlantic relationship "made the modern world" and built the institutions that have underpinned the global order since the end of World War II.

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