Donald Trump’s apparent fondness for Keir Starmer has been among the most surprising episodes in his second term in office – but beyond all the awkward smiles and gift giving, how much do we actually get out of it?
Donald Trump’s apparent fondness for Keir Starmer has been among the most surprising episodes in his second term in office, at least from our point of view.
According to Starmer they genuinely get on famously, connecting over shared ‘family values.’ And the Prime Minister is seen as some kind of mystical Trump whisperer by many counterparts in Europe – who time and again use him as a go-between.
Most recently this could be seen in Nato and Denmark’s bid to calm Trump down about Greenland. Starmer called Trump to deliver messages from Nato’s Mark Rutte and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen – whom he’d spoken to on the phone just hours before. Volodymyr Zelensky clearly recognises and respects Starmer’s ability to steer Trump’s thinking – at least temporarily.
But all relationships go through rough patches, and many couples ignore the bumps and cracks, pretending they’re not there. Until one day both parties are in need of a lawyer.
Keir Starmer and Donald Trump’s first meeting in office last February was a high stakes moment. The Prime Minister was visibly tense as they sat down together in the Oval Office, surrounded by journalists shouting questions.
But he had a trump card up his sleeve – an offer for a second state visit from King Charles. Mr Trump was clearly delighted by it and showed it to the cameras, helping to break the ice.
The meeting went well after that, partly because the PM let the US President hold court. And at a press conference later he heaped praise on Mr Starmer, declaring him a tough negotiator, something Trump prizes.
But any wins the PM thought he’d got on security guarantees for Ukraine melted away the next day, when the world watch as the US President attacked Volodymyr Zelensky live on TV. The fleeting nature of Trump’s goodwill has become a theme.
Starmer was so delighted when Trump rang him up to offer him something resembling a trade deal – albeit one with the same 10% tariff floor on everything, and limited carveouts – that he didn’t even mind that he interrupted an Arsenal game to talk about it. At least he said he didn’t mind. He did bring it up a couple of times when he announced the deal the following day.
And while the basic “Economic Prosperity Deal” is in place, the hopes for more carve-outs to be negotiated down the line have long since evaporated, and steel exports are still subject to 25% tariffs. And then Trump came over for his unprecedented state visit in September. After being treated to tea with the King, lunch at Chequers, and being paraded in front of as much Churchill memorabilia as the British state could muster, the UK and US signed a Tech Prosperity Deal.
It lasted less than three months before being put on ice by the US, who complained we weren’t lowering our trade barriers fast enough for them.
Starmer’s influence over Trump as far as Russia and Ukraine is concerned has never been proven. Trump still flits like a geopolitical gadfly between listening to Starmer and listening to Zelensky and listening to his old buddy Vladimir. And now nobody can really convince him to do anything, because all of his attention is on his “own” hemisphere.
Trump not only didn’t tell Starmer before he invaded Venezuela and snatched its leader, still in his pyjamas. And while Starmer insisted he’d “shed no tears” for the regime of Nicolas Maduro, you couldn’t help but sense that not calling Starmer to discuss the invasion for several days stung a bit.
And that brings us back to Greenland. Which Trump wants, and most of the rest of the world doesn’t want him to have. Starmer’s capacity as Trump whisperer seems, at least on this issue, to be either diminished or wildly overestimated, because despite Starmer’s best try at being a messenger from the old country, “the future of Greenland is for Greenland and Denmark to decide” is not the message Trump is running with. At the time of writing, in fact, he’s threatening anyone who defies him on Greenland with crippling tariffs.
By the time this is published, he may well have invaded Greenland. Or Colombia. Or one of the countless other countries he’s threatened to invade since New Year. It’s hard to say, because there’s absolutely no chance he’ll tell us, his closest ally, in advance.
Beyond all the gift giving and awkward chats about family and forced jokes about golf and royal banquets and smiling while he sends goon squads round his own country shooting unarmed women and bundling random people into vans, we’re left to wonder…how much did we actually get out of it? And is the relationship…actually all that Special?
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