This week, the Prime Minister visited Washington to charm President Trump, resulting in a significant win for Keir Starmer – marking a highlight in his somewhat disappointing eight months in power.
But it was not quite the triumph his spin doctors and Labour’s cheerleaders in the media would have us believe.
Despite their contrasting backgrounds in politics, the personal bond and polite gestures shared during the White House meeting on Thursday were commendable.
British diplomats had effectively prepared for the visit by emphasizing shared interests, glossing over differences, and Starmer, known for his reserved manner, managed to shine in the American spotlight.
He flew back to Blighty his stature as a world leader enhanced, having established a decent rapport with a quixotic US President. This will give him a pivotal role in Europe, Brexit notwithstanding, as it attempts to come to terms with a far less engaged America.
There was even some substance in their deliberations. Trump indicated that, as he gears up for another round of growth-destroying trade tariffs, Britain might be dealt a get-out-of-jail-free card. This matters since the US is our biggest national export market.
He even dangled the prospect of an Anglo-American trade deal. ‘I think we’re going to end up with a great trade deal,’ Trump opined. Indeed, there was a ‘very good chance’ that Britain and the US will sign a ‘real trade deal where tariffs aren’t necessary’. Starmer purred.
Trump even backed away from making an issue of Starmer’s ridiculous plan to surrender the Chagos Archipelago, a British Overseas Territory in the Indian Ocean, to Mauritius (2,000 kilometres away) – then pay around £10 billion (linked to inflation) to lease back just one of the islands, Diego Garcia, where America has a strategic airbase.
The personal chemistry displayed and the pleasantries exchanged during Thursday’s White House visit were impressive, writes ANDREW NEIL
‘I have a feeling it’s going to work out very well,’ said Trump in words that surprised many (including me!). ‘I think we’ll be inclined to go along with [Britain]. It doesn’t sound bad.’ Of course, it’s not America that will have to pony up the £10 billion to pay for what we already have.
So Starmer had some significant accomplishments to stick under his belt as he boarded the red eye back to London on Thursday night. But on the most important matter of all he came away empty-handed.
Starmer, somewhat rashly, has committed British forces as peacekeepers (to serve with other NATO armies) along a ceasefire line should Trump pull off a peace deal with Russia over Ukraine. But he wants America to be ready with military backing should our forces need it. Trump is unenthusiastic. He’s already ruled out US boots on the ground. Now it’s clear even air cover is not a given.
Securing American security guarantees for the peacekeepers was Starmer’s most important mission in Washington this week. Sadly, he failed. So did France’s Emmanuel Macron when he visited earlier in the week. He called his meeting with Trump a ‘turning point’. But, frankly, it’s hard to see what point was turned.
Look behind all the bromides and banalities that obfuscate meetings between Trump and his visiting supplicants and you can quickly see what really motivates the President. He sees a peace deal in Ukraine as an exit route for US military involvement in Eastern Europe, not a precursor to more intervention.
He has no historic or ideological allegiance to the Atlantic Alliance, the cornerstone of American-European security for almost 80 years. That was clear on Thursday during Starmer’s visit.
When asked bluntly if he supported NATO’s Article 5, which commits all members to come to the aid of any member under attack, Trump hesitated, then muttered an unconvincing ‘yes’ before rushing to add that he didn’t think it would ever need to be invoked.
It was hardly reassuring. Starmer kept quiet, no doubt anxious not to puncture the bonhomie in the room, even though Trump had just run a coach and horse through NATO’s very raison d’être.
Today it was Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s turn to get the White House treatment — with a Trump offer he couldn’t refuse, however much he’d like to. He was there to sign an agreement for the joint exploitation of Ukraine’s mineral wealth come the peace. Normally when wars end it is the aggressor who is landed with the bill for reparations, as Germany was at the end of World War 1. But in Trump World it is whoever America has bankrolled during hostilities. Zelensky was told to sign or face a rundown in American military support. But then it turned even worse than that in unprecedented scenes in the Oval Office, of which more in a moment.
Trump told Starmer that, if post-war Ukraine was full of Americans exploiting its minerals, Russia was unlikely to cut up rough and resort to further hostilities. I can understand the logic. But it’s hardly the same as a watertight security guarantee.
That’s the problem with Trump: you just don’t know what bits of what he says are bankable. Even Starmer’s apparent successes from his visit could easily turn out not to be quite what they’re currently cracked up to be.
Take tariffs. Trump, who some said was not really serious about them, is about to embark on several rounds of tariff increases: 25 per cent on Mexico and Canada (two neighbours and allies); an extra 10 per cent on China on top of last month’s 10 per cent; 25 per cent on steel, aluminium, cars and pharmaceuticals from anywhere; and a new range of global ‘reciprocal’ tariffs (whatever your tariffs are on our stuff, we’ll levy at least the same on yours).
Is it really conceivable that Britain will manage to avoid this Trump tariff blizzard? Possibly, with a far-reaching free trade deal. But, for all Trump’s talk of a ‘real trade deal, quickly as it can be done’, there is no prospect of a ‘full-fat’ deal (which would do away with all US-UK tariffs). Officials on both sides of the Atlantic are making that clear.
Starmer speaks of a trade deal which would have ‘advanced technology at its core’, which suggests it will be less than comprehensive. Perhaps this suits him. His government is committed to aligning UK regulations, such as food standards, with the European Union. You cannot do that and aspire to a wide-ranging free trade agreement with America.
Maybe Starmer will have second thoughts about realignment. He is, after all, experiencing something of a re-education when it comes to Brexit. He speaks about a new deal with America on artificial intelligence because he goes along with its light-touch approach to AI. He couldn’t do that if we were still in the EU, where AI regulation is heavy-handed.
He urges the US not to impose tariffs on Britain. He could not ask to be made an exception if the UK was still an EU member. Nor would there be any prospect of a trade deal with America. Brussels has sole control of trade policy for all EU members.
He’s turned his meetings with visiting world leaders, like Starmer and Macron, into a form of daytime TV talk show, live from the Oval Office
When it comes to tariffs, we’re not out of the woods yet, however. Nor is the Chagos deal necessarily done and dusted. I’m told Trump has given very little thought to it. (‘He couldn’t find the Chagos Islands on a map,’ a State Department official said to me.) But a number of prominent Republicans are stridently against it. They may yet get his attention. If they do, I don’t rule out a wrenching U-turn.
Sudden changes of mind are always a risk when dealing with Trump. It’s partly the way he is (having no fixed opinions), partly the manner in which he conducts business.
He’s turned his meetings with visiting world leaders, like Starmer and Macron, into a form of daytime TV talk show, live from the Oval Office, in which he gets to dominate the conversation and his guests are mere supporting acts, or even a foil for his barbs.
Substance takes second place to adoration and light-hearted exchanges. Trump will lavish praise on his guests even when he barely knows them, as he did with Starmer (who he’s met only once before) this week, the understanding being they will reply in kind.
‘Prime Minister Starmer, you’ve been terrific in our discussions,’ Trump said with a wry smile. ‘You’re a very tough negotiator. I’m not sure I like that. But that’s okay.’
Starmer lapped it up and thanked Trump for his leadership and commitment to peace, at that point it had perhaps not yet dawned on him that, on the issue that mattered most, this ‘tough negotiator’ had largely failed.
Macron was suitably giggly and complimentary during his time on Daytime Trump TV. But Starmer came up with a classic talk show stunt when he produced a letter from King Charles inviting Trump to a state visit. Both Starmer and Trump played their parts to perfection.
Our PM ladled on the soft soap, repeating how ‘unprecedented’ it was for any world leader to be offered a second state visit to Britain (Trump made one in his first term). For a man who used to dine out on his republican credentials he was very convincing as he invoked the soft power of the monarch to keep the special relationship on track.
Trump affected to be surprised, asked if he could open the letter, then praised Charles as a ‘great gentleman, a great, great gentleman’. Oprah Winfrey in her daytime heyday could not have done it any better.
But even daytime TV can turn nasty – and it did with Zelensky in the Oval Office. Suddenly triggered by the Ukrainian president saying, rightly, that Putin could not be trusted, Trump and his Vice President JD Vance rounded on Zelensky with a brutal verbal assault, threatening to abandon him and his country unless he did as he was told. Â
It was nothing short of a disgrace, the bullying of a leader whose country has been savaged by unprovoked Russian aggression and who deserved to be treated better. Who knows where it leaves any peace process? When it ended Trump, in character, remarked that it ‘would make great TV’.Â
Meanwhile, in the real world, the war in Ukraine rages on. ‘I think we’re going to have a very successful peace,’ Trump told Starmer, ‘and I think it’s going to be a long lasting peace, and I think it’s going to happen hopefully quickly.’
Such vague but warm generalisations are the very stuff of daytime television and Trump is a master. But it is a format which does not lend itself to rigorous scrutiny or forensic inquiry.
When Trump was asked if he trusted President Putin he replied: ‘I think he’ll keep his word. I spoke to him, I’ve known him for a long time now, I don’t believe he’s going to violate his word.’
This of a dictator who has violated just about every treaty he’s signed. Again, Starmer stayed shtum, probably wisely. Never upset the host in daytime TV. Viewers don’t like confrontations.
Our Prime Minister probably did the best he could in difficult circumstances. It could be the basis of future Anglo-American collaboration — or it could all unravel within weeks. With Trump you just never know.
On peace in Ukraine the word out of Moscow is that Putin has no real idea what shape Trump thinks a peace deal could take. It could all come to nothing.
I expect Starmer knows that. But for the moment he must indulge Trump. As must America’s other allies, while holding the line on some very basic issues, like no peace deal without Ukraine’s full participation.
We must await events. What happened in the White House on Thursday was somewhat divorced from reality. If Starmer doubts that, he might care to remember that Trump praised the famously nasal knight for his ‘beautiful accent’. You only hear that sort of flannel on daytime TV.
