BERLIN // Britain said on Monday it would be a "strong partner" to Germany in response to comments by German Chancellor Angela Merkel about the UK and the US no longer being reliable allies.
Mrs Merkel's comments Sunday came after a Group of Seven summit at which the Europeans could not reach agreement with Mr Trump on climate change.
"The times in which we can fully count on others are somewhat over, as I have experienced in the past few days," she said during the election campaign event in Bavaria. "All I can say is that we Europeans must really take our destiny into our own hands."
Britain voted to end its four decades of European Union membership in a referendum last year and complex negotiations with Brussels are due to begin later this month ahead of an exit expected in 2019.
On Monday, interior minister Amber Rudd told BBC radio: "As we begin the negotiations about leaving the EU, we will be able to reassure Germany and other European countries that we are going to be a strong partner to them in defence and security and, we hope, in trade."
"We can reassure Mrs Merkel that we want to have a deep and special partnership so that we can continue to maintain European-wide security to keep us all safe from the terrorists abroad and those that are trying to be nurtured in our country," she said.
Meanwhile, Mrs Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said Germany remained committed to strong trans-Atlantic relations, but the chancellor's suggestion after meetings with president Donald Trump that Europe can no longer entirely rely on Washington "speaks for itself".
He said the chancellor is "a convinced trans-Atlanticist".
US-German relations "are a strong pillar of our foreign and security policy, and Germany will continue working to strengthen these relations," Mr Seibert said. "Precisely because they are so important, it's right to name differences honestly."
Following the end of the G-7 meeting in Sicily on Saturday, Mrs Merkel was sharply critical of Mr Trump's decision not to join the other countries in reiterating support for the 2015 Paris Agreement that aims to slow global warming, calling the climate talks "very unsatisfactory."
"Here is a situation where it's six, seven if you include the EU, against one," she said. "That means there are so far no signs whether the United States of America will remain in the Paris agreement or not."
Mr Trump later tweeted that he would make his "final decision" on the Paris accord this week.
* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
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