Trump says US won’t give Ukraine security guarantees ‘beyond very much’ ahead of Starmer meeting – UK politics live | Politics

Keir Starmer attended a reception at the British embassy in Washington last night, where Peter Mandelson, the new UK ambassador, predicted that Donald Trump would be a “very consequential president”.

In his speech, Mandelson this was a “very significant moment for our lives, between our two countries and indeed for all the freedom-loving democracies in the world”. He told his guests:

The US and the United Kingdom, we basically share everything together.

We share people, we share cultures, we share a lot of intelligence, we share technologies, and … we also share some of the fighting of our adversaries as well.

And of course one thing we don’t need to fight over is trade, because we have this fantastically fair and balanced trade relationship when we reciprocate so much – that’s just a little thing for you to remember in the coming weeks.

Trump has not yet said whether or not the UK will be exempt from the tariffs he says he will impose on the rest of Europe, and the UK government is arguing that its exports should be tariff-free because trade between the two countries is broadly balanced.

Referring to Trump, Mandelson also said:

You have a leader in this country in the president who in my view is going to be a very consequential president for this country indeed.

Mandelson intended his American guests to take that as a compliment. But even Trump’s fiercest critics probably would not quibble with Mandelson’s description.

Good morning. Keir Starmer is in Washington where later today he will have his first meeting with President Trump since the inauguration. With Trump aligning with Moscow even more explicitly than he did during his first administration, and threatening to wind down the Nato guarantees that have underpinned the security of western Europe since the second world war, the stakes could not be higher. Starmer, despite leading a party whose activists mostly loathe Trump and everything he represents, has managed to establish a warm relationship with the president and today will give some clues as to what extent he can sustain that, and protect the UK from the tariff warfare that Trump is threatening to unleash on the EU. But Starmer is one of three European leaders in Washington this week (Emmanuel Macron was there on Monday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is there tomorrow) and today’s meeting is also part of a wider story about the fracturing of the US/Europe alliance. It is definitely in trouble; what is not yet clear is whether after four years of Trump it will still be fully functional.

Starmer spoke to reporters on his flight to the US yesterday. Pippa Crerar, the Guardian’s political editor, was on the plane and, as she reports, Starmer said he wants Trump to agree that, in the event of a peace settlement in Ukraine, the US will offer security guarantees that will make it durable. The PM has already said that Britain would contribute troops to a European so-called “tripwire” peace-keeping force, there to defend Ukraine and deter Russia. But European soldiers would need US air and logistical support to be effective, and Starmer is looking for assurances that Washington will provide this level of support.

But the backdrop is not promising. As Starmer was flying across the Atlantic, Trump was holding a televised cabinet meeting where, Soviet-style, his ministers laughed heartily at his jokes as they all congratulated each other on how brilliantly they were doing. In the course of the meeting, on the subject of Ukraine, Trump said:

I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much. We’re going to have Europe do that.

Starmer is due to arrive at the White House shortly after 5pm UK time and the press conference is meant to start at 7pm. We will, of course, be covering it live. It should be fascinating. During Trump’s first term, Theresa May managed to get the first foreign leader invite to the White House and her visit, during which she offered the president a state visit, was deemed a success. But it did not stop Trump treating her very badly later during the presidency, regularly patronising her when they spoke in private, and sometimes in public too, and openly suggesting at one point that Boris Johnson would make a better replacement.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: The Home Office publishes its latest asylum, resettlement and returns figures.

9.30am: Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

After 10.30am: Lucy Powell, the leader of the Commons, makes a statement to MPs about next week’s parliamentary business.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

Around 5.15pm (UK time): Keir Starmer is due to arrive at the White House for his meeting with President Trump.

Around 7pm (UK time): Starmer and Trump are due to hold a press conference.

And at some point today Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, is expected to announce that she is approving a decision to expand Gatwick.

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