Changes

Relations with Britain had been strained since the Suez crisis of 1956. Now both countries were led by like-minded leaders who collaborated closely, Prime Minister [[Margaret Thatcher]] and Reagan. Their collaboration was based on a striking convergence of ideologically driven conservatives who shared similar domestic agendas and a common foreign policy. Both led domestic political revolutions--supply-side economics, increased defense spending, privatization, deregulation, and an overall conservative agenda. Reagan was the "Great Communicator", Thatcher the "Iron Lady". The two became personal friends. Strains erupted in 1982 when the U.S. tried to mediate a dispute between Britain and Argentina over ownership of the [[Falkland Islands]], located in the south Atlantic Ocean, far from Britain and close to Argentina. When mediation failed, the U.S. supported Britain by quietly providing logistical support and military intelligence during the three-month conflict. In 1983 Thatcher criticized Reagan's intervention in Genada, nominally part of the British Commonwealth. Reagan and Thatcher's mutual trust strengthened Reagan's hand against the Soviet Union. In 1984  Thatcher became the first NATO leader wanted to meet cooperate with [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] before his ascension to the Soviet presidency. She told the world, "We can do business togetherand convinced Reagan that it was possible." That assessment shifted Western political rhetoric from East-West confrontation to conciliation and support for internal democratic reform in the Soviet Union. Reagan adopted Thatcher's view, and when Gorbachev started to dismantle the Soviet Empire Reagan largely abandoning his own harsh depiction of the Soviet Union as the "focus of evil in the modern world." The collapse of the Soviet Union, however, lessened U.S. military need for a trusty friend in Europe. Thus, American relations with Britain turned more to trade and economic issues.