They are both renowned for speaking their minds. And now British foreign secretary Boris Johnson is heading to meet US President-elect Donald Trump’s senior aides. Mr Johnson has jetted to New York to meet with senior members of Mr Trump’s team in a bid to pave the way for a face to face meeting between the president and Prime Minister Theresa May in the spring.

While Mr Johnson said that Mr Trump was unfit to hold office a year ago, he will be sitting down to build bridges with the entrepreneur’s team. He is expected to hold discussions with Mr Trump’s trusted advisors, his son in law Jared Kushner and strategist Steve Bannon.

It may be that Mr Johnson also meets Mr Trump during the visit if things are deemed to be going well. The visit comes follows Mrs May condeming Mr Trump’s previous remarks about groping women as “unacceptable.”

While Mr Johnson has been disparaging about the former reality star previously, he has now said that Mr Trump’s presidency will actually provide great opportunities for Britain. Both Mrs May and Mr Johnson weren’t too complimentary about Mr Trump while he was running his election campaign.

War of words

In 2015, Mr Johnson said that Mr Trump must be “out of his mind” for suggesting that he would impose a ban on Muslims coming into America. Then, when Mr Trump said that parts of London were “no go” areas because there was such a high threat of terrorism, Mr Johnson hit back, saying he was displaying “stupefying ignorance”.

He went on to say that he wouldn’t visit some areas of New York in case he bumped into Mr Trump. However, Mr Johnson has now been forced to eat his words, as he is making a trip to Trump Tower in a bid to make sure that the UK builds a good working relationship with the US under Mr Trump’s presidicency.