As he jets back to Britain after his trip to the White House, Sir Keir Starmer is entitled to breathe a sigh of relief. Fears that stiff Starmer would endure a repeat of Theresa May’s awkward hand holding incident with Trump when she visited the Oval Office in his first term proved unfounded.
The president was gushing in his praise for the prime minister, and went out of his way to salute the Anglo-US “special relationship” that some feared had sunk mid-Atlantic. Starmer, looking relaxed and more statesmanlike than usual, returned the compliment in kind.
Barring one or two characteristically eccentric moments, when Starmer’s heart must have been in his mouth, Trump did not pull one of his famous stunts, such as ostentatiously picking a piece of dandruff from Emmanuel Macron’s suit, as he did a few years ago.
Then again, Starmer arrived at the Oval Office laden with such generous gifts it is a wonder he wasn’t asked to pay a tariff on them by US Customs.
Just before boarding the plane in London he announced a multi-billion-pound increase in defence spending. Coincidentally or not, it was just as Trump had been demanding of him and other European leaders, so the US doesn’t have to fork out to defend them from his bestie Vladimir Putin.
Far from complaining that he had had to cut Britain’s overseas budget in half as a result, Starmer actually thanked Trump. It was only right that Europe rose to the challenge, he said. To put it another way, Trump says “jump!” and Starmer says: “How high?”
Starmer’s bottom had barely touched his Oval Office chair when he pulled from his inside jacket pocket a present that even billionaire dealmaker Trump could not put a price on.
It is customary for visiting British prime ministers to arrive at the White House with a present for their host. It is usually a first edition, a sculpture or other artefact – it is rarely a signed letter from the monarch promising a trumpet fanfare, banquet and roll of red carpet which stretches all the way to Buckingham Palace.
After giving gold obsessed Trump the metaphorical Crown Jewels of a state visit to Britain, even Trump would have been hard put not to respond graciously.
And it is only fair to say he did, though he laid it on with a trowel so heavily that when, with a theatrical flourish, he lauded cautious lawyer Starmer as a “tough negotiator,” was I alone in wondering if it was a presidential wind up.
Not that Starmer is returning empty handed. Trump backed his plans to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and suggested Britain may escape his trade tariff war on the EU.
These gains are not to be sniffed at.
But before Starmer gets the Downing Street bunting out it is worth looking beyond the banter at key aspects which did not go his way. Trump rejected his demand for US troops to provide a “backstop” for British and other European troops in any peace keeping force in Ukraine.
He fobbed him off with warm words about the US plan to send civilian workers to Ukraine as part of a minerals deal between the two countries as being a form of “backstop.” It is nothing of the sort.
To underline this, Trump stamped on the notion – supported by many in Europe but violently opposed by Putin – that Ukraine might join NATO. He went even further, repeatedly stating his trust in Putin, regularly denounced in blistering terms by Starmer. Though the “tough negotiator” did not do that in the Oval Office to Trump’s face. Funny that.
Similarly, Trump took gleeful delight in dodging the question when ITV’s Robert Peston challenged him outright to apologise for calling president Zelensky a dictator. And at one point, he appeared to mock Starmer, asking him if he thought Britain could take on Russia on its own.
Starmer smiled. The truthful answer would have been, “No, Mr President, not without America.” For all the warm words in the White House, that is where Britain stood before Starmer went to Washington. And it is where it stands afterwards.
No sooner than Starmer’s plane lands will he then host vital meetings on Ukraine this weekend. Everyone will be there: all the main European leaders – and president Zelensky.
But Starmer’s new best friends the Americans will not be there. That is the reality of the new “special relationship.”
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