British PM secures concessions on trade and Chagos Islands but little on Ukraine amid growing bromance with Trump
Keir Starmer and Donald Trump shake hands during a joint press conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, DC. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Imagesis more of a fan of Beethoven than he is of Meat Loaf. Yet for his crucial White House mission to win over US presidentStarmer 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.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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