Donald Trump snubs Theresa May yet again, opts to meet Macron instead

Tensions between Britain and the US look set to increase after it was reported that Donald Trump had decided against meeting Theresa May at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Political and business leaders alongside finance ministers will be out in force at the annual Swiss summit to discuss the state of the world's economy.

And while it is commonplace for world leaders to hold impromptu chinwags with their opposite numbers, it appears that one possible meeting has already been axed.

The Telegraph reported that efforts from Whitehall to "engineer an encounter" between Donald Trump and Theresa May have failed.

Both May and Trump will be attending the summit next week but officials in Westminster appear to have abandoned the idea of a meeting between the two.

White House officials have confirmed that they are expecting a meeting between Trump and the French President Emmanuel Macron at the summit.

The president had been billed to open the new US embassy in London but he cancelled the trip expressing displeasure at its "off location" in south London.

The old embassy in Grosvenor Square, in desirable Mayfair, was deemed a major security headache, leading to a relocation to a more secure location, just a few miles away in the Vauxhall area.

Trump tweeted: "Reason I cancelled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for "peanuts," only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars. Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO!"

On Thursday 18 January, the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stoked speculation further over US-UK relations after he blamed the shelved trip on Brexit.

He said that Britain needed to "focus on Brexit", and that trump did not want to distract attention from the current negotiations.