After a barrage of mixed messages from the White House towards Britain, the Prime Minister has said he and Donald Trump still have a “good relationship” and he “likes and respects” the US President. In an interview with the New York Times, Sir Keir spelled out his view of a shift in the global balance as Europe enters a new phase of re-armament as America seeks to unburden itself of the heavy lifting it has been doing in defence of the continent.
Over the past weeks, voices from the Trump administration have been bombastic at times towards the UK, with Vice-President JD Vance sparking outrage after dismissing a British military peacekeeping force in Ukraine as being from “some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years”. And in the past 24 hours, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said he “liked” Vladimir Putin and rubbished Downing Street’s plan to help keep a ceasefire in Ukraine as “simplistic”.
Mr Starmer, who was the first Western leader to welcome President Zelensky after the Ukrainian leader’s disastrous Oval Office meeting last month, said he still personally enjoyed a good relationship with Mr Vance and Witkoff’s boss, the Commander-in-Chief, Donald Trump.
He told the New York Times: “On a person-to-person basis, I think we have a good relationship, I like and respect him. I understand what he’s trying to achieve.”
The British Prime Minister, who first met Mr Trump for a private dinner in Trump Tower last year, said the US President treasured his meetings with Queen Elizabeth II.
During their most recent meeting in the Oval Office, Mr Starmer offered a personal invitation from Her Majesty’s son King Charles III for an unprecedented second state visit to Mr Trump, which the president seemed overjoyed to accept.
The overall mood of that meeting between the two men was cordial and friendly, with the only sign of open discord occurring when JD Vance questioned free speech in the United Kingdom. Sir Keir responded, saying “we’ve had free speech for a very long time, it will last a long time, and we are very proud of that”.
Just days later during a meeting with Ukrainian leader President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr Vance once more piped up from the sofa in the Oval Office when he called the wartime leader “disrespectful”. The ensuing ugly scenes then led to Mr Zelensky leaving the White House and not signing a proposed mineral deal as he flew instead to London.
Speaking about the aftermath of the Oval Office showdown between Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky, the PM revealed there had been “pressure” to “come out very critically” of the meeting.
He told the New York Times: “On the day in which the Oval Office meeting between President Trump and President Zelensky didn’t go particularly well, we were under pressure to come out very critically with, you know, flowery adjectives to describe how others felt.
“I took the view that it was better to pick up the phone and talk to both sides to try and get them back on the same page.”
