British prime minister Keir Starmer is more of a fan of Beethoven than he is of Meat Loaf. Yet for his crucial White House mission to win over US president Donald Trump, two out of three ain’t bad.
Starmer flew to Washington this week seeking assurances from Trump on trade, the future of the Chagos Islands and US backing for Europe’s security through the prism of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Starmer won significant concessions from the president on the first two. But when it came to his attempt to herd Trump into giving way on Ukraine, the prime minister’s bounty was meagre.
If anything on the issue of Ukraine, it was Trump who secured even more from Starmer. By the end of the day’s meetings, the UK prime minister appeared to promise to send British military jets to Ukraine to keep the peace – the very thing that he had come to Washington to try to convince the US to do.
However, the burgeoning bromance that has taken hold between the two leaders may yet be held aloft by Starmer as evidence of a win in itself.
If not quite a rabbit from a hat, Starmer’s production of a letter from his pocket from King Charles offering Trump another state visit was a masterstroke of political theatre. The US president seemed chuffed. With Trump, flattery gets you almost anywhere.
The omens looked good for Starmer the moment he arrived at the door at the famous West Wing of the White House late in Washington’s morning. Trump doesn’t always come to the West Wing door himself to greet foreign leaders, but he did for Starmer, whom he had previously met before last November’s US election.
Britain’s prime minister, who is often derided in his home country for his perceived stodginess, spent months trying to build a personal rapport with Trump, and it showed.
The footage of their first encounter with the media in the Oval Office showed Starmer’s initial stilted nervousness melting away as the US president lavished praised on him and on Britain. Trump said it was a “special place ... a fantastic country” and Starmer was a “special man”.
Meanwhile, Charles was lauded by the US president as “wonderful”. Trump immediately accepted the offer of a state visit with all its pomp and pageantry, the execution of which remains a British superpower.
The pay-off for Starmer seemed almost immediate. The prime minister was heavily criticised by his Tory opponents before he left for Washington over a deal he struck to hand back to Mauritius the Chagos Islands, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean where the US and UK have a joint military base.
That deal had been paused to await Trump’s approval, which some suspected could be withheld because of US concerns that it gave an opportunity for China to deepen its influence in the region.
Trump, however, almost immediately said he was prepared to “go along with” Starmer’s Chagos deal, which will give the prime minister some political ammunition to fire back at his domestic critics.
Another of Starmer’s over-arching objectives for his US mission was to convince Trump not to hit Britain with the heavy trade tariffs he has lined up for Europe.
The UK economy is stagnant and Starmer knows that if he can’t jump start it into life over the next couple of years, it could cost him another clear victory at the next general election. A barrage of tariffs from the US would make economic progress much harder to achieve.
Trump did not explicitly promise to let Britain swerve tariffs. But the two leaders announced they had started talks on a wider trade deal, anchored by co-operation on artificial intelligence, that would negate Trump’s desire for tariffs on the UK, for which he said he had a “warm spot”. The US president also suggested a trade deal could happen “quickly”.
Starmer’s predecessors all the way back to Theresa May in 2017 had sought a trade deal with the US to boost transatlantic trade after Brexit, but to no avail. If Starmer gets one over the line, it could be the catalyst for renewed British economic optimism.
Britain’s prime minister did not, however, get what he came for on Ukraine. He had wanted the US military to provide a hard “backstop” for any European peacekeeping force sent into the country as part of any deal that may be struck with its invader, Russia. That was generally taken to mean that Starmer wanted US planes to give “top cover” to European troops below.
At the press conference following the leaders’ meeting, however, Starmer said he was prepared to put British military “boots on the ground and planes in the air”, which suggested that he had been rebuffed and told to provide air cover himself.
There were glimmers of hope for Starmer on Ukraine, whose president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is due in Washington on Friday to sign a rare earth minerals extraction deal with Trump. The US president last week called Zelenskiy a “dictator”. But following talks with Starmer, he was much more conciliatory, heralding the Ukrainian’s bravery.
The US president also promised to try to get back through negotiations some of the Ukrainian land that has been occupied by Russia.
Starmer sat back and let Trump do most of the talking. When the prime minister did choose to interject, he wasn’t too afraid to occasionally correct his hosts. For example, when vice-president JD Vance reiterated criticism of free speech rights in Britain, Starmer effectively rebuked him in front of the president by crisply asserting that he was “proud” of free speech in his nation.
Starmer also appeared to gently correct Trump when the US president asserted that European nations were on course to get back all of their aid to Ukraine. Starmer said no, much of Britain’s assistance to Zelenskiy’s government had been “gifted”.
These blips did little, however, to spoil the air of bonhomie between the prime minister and the president. Starmer will surely be pleased with the outcome of his White House trip, which had been billed in advance as one of the most consequential US missions for the UK in decades.
Days in the sun have been few and far between for Starmer in his premiership so far. He will surely bask in this one for as long as he can.
