Donald Trump To Strike Trade Deal With UK Quickly, Says 'Brexit Will Be A Great Thing'

President-elect Donald Trump promised to strike a bilateral trade deal with the United Kingdom once he enters the White House in five days. In an interview Sunday with the Times, his first with British media, Trump told former Justice Secretary and prominent Brexit supporter Michael Gove that U.K.'s decision to leave the EU would turn out to be a "great thing," and that the fall in the value of the pound was great because "business is unbelievable in a lot of parts in the U.K."

In his interview with the Times, Trump said: "I’m a big fan of the U.K., we’re going to work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly. Good for both sides. I will be meeting with [Theresa May] — in fact if you want you can see the letter, wherever the letter is, she just sent it. She’s requesting a meeting and we’ll have a meeting right after I get into the White House and... we’re going to get something done very quickly."

Citing the issue of migrants coming into Europe, Trump predicted that other EU countries would also leave the bloc, like Britain. He said if EU countries "hadn’t been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that it... entails, I think that you wouldn’t have a Brexit. It probably could have worked out, but this was the final straw, this was the final straw that broke the camel’s back."

The president-elect specifically criticized the immigration policies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying: "I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know, taking all of the people from wherever they come from. And nobody even knows where they come from."

Trump also weighed in on international security, picking on NATO and said how he had known "a long time ago that NATO had problems. One; that it was obsolete because it was designed many years ago, and number two; that the countries weren't paying what they're supposed to pay. I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete. It’s obsolete because it wasn’t taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right."