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Bannon and Kushner engineer UK meetings

Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP

Donald Trump will take his first foreign leader meeting as President with British Prime Minister Theresa May. They'll meet Thursday, says White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

Behind the Scenes:

  • A senior source tells Axios that Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon played an important role in pushing the meeting to happen earlier than originally planned.
  • Bannon has also been in contact with Boris Johnson, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and one of the chief cheerleaders of the Brexit movement.
  • Jared Kushner was also very influential in the process, we are told.

Why this matters: Trump has already expressed interest in a U.S.-Britain bilateral trade deal (replacing the previously planned, and now doomed, multilateral European deal.) This could happen quicker than some expected if the two strike up a rapport.

The 30,000 foot view: European leaders will be watching the Trump-May meeting closely. Trump and his allies actively encouraged Brexit, particularly Steve Bannon's Breitbart News. The post-Brexit Special Relationship between the U.S. and Britain will have a large bearing on the fate of the European project.

What's next? It will be interesting to see whether May changes Trump's mind about NATO. He's called the alliance "obsolete." She's sounded more positive notes.

Other things to watch: The EU, defense policy and Russia.

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The U.S. Office of Special Counsel alerted the White House and Congress on Wednesday of an investigation that found the Department of Health and Human Services misused millions of dollars that were budgeted for vaccine research and public health emergencies for Ebola, Zika and now the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why it matters: The more than 200-page investigation corroborated claims from a whistleblower, showing the agency's violation of the Purpose Statute spanned both the Obama and Trump administrations and paid for unrelated projects like salaries, news subscriptions and the removal of office furniture.

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John Kerry: U.S.-China climate cooperation is a "critical standalone issue"

President Biden's special climate envoy John Kerry said Wednesday that the U.S. must deal with China on climate change as a "critical standalone issue," but stressed that confronting Beijing's human rights and trade abuses "will never be traded" for climate cooperation.

Why it matters: The last few years have brought about a bipartisan consensus on the threat posed by China. But as the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, China will be a vital player if the world is going to come close to reining in emissions on the scale needed to meet the Paris Agreement goals of limiting warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

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In cyber espionage, U.S. is both hunted and hunter

Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios

American outrage over foreign cyber espionage, like Russia's SolarWinds hack, obscures the uncomfortable reality that the U.S. secretly does just the same thing to other countries.

Why it matters: Secrecy is often necessary in cyber spying to protect sources and methods, preserve strategic edges that may stem from purloined information, and prevent diplomatic incidents.

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