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Trump's actions spur Brit uproar

Parties want visit canceled

LONDON — A state visit to Britain by President Donald Trump later this year will go ahead, the prime minister’s office said today, despite increasing calls for it to be canceled over his temporary ban on residents of seven majority-Muslim countries entering the U.S.

Furor over the travel ban has tarnished what British officials had considered a highly successful trip to Washington by Prime Minister Theresa May. She met Trump at the White House on Friday and announced that he had been invited to come to Britain later this year as the guest of Queen Elizabeth II.

May’s Downing St. office said today that “an invitation has been extended and accepted,” and the visit is still on.

No date has been announced for the state visit, which involves lavish pomp and ceremony, generally with a stay at Buckingham Palace.

The visit was hailed by government officials as a sign of the close trans-Atlantic relationship, which was also reflected in May’s invitation to meet Trump just a week after his inauguration.

But criticism of May’s wooing of Trump erupted when — only hours after the prime minister had left the White House — the president signed an executive order suspending all travel to the U.S. of citizens of Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Libya for 90 days. The order also bars all refugees entering the country for 120 days.

Britain’s three biggest opposition parties have all called for Trump’s state visit to be canceled and an online petition opposing the trip has more than 1 million signatures. Protests against the travel ban are planned in London and other British cities.

Any petition with more than 100,000 signatures must be considered for a debate in Parliament, though not a binding vote.

Last year, Parliament debated whether to ban Trump, then a presidential candidate, from visiting Britain after a similar online petition was filed.

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