LONDON — The United Kingdom doesn’t have to choose between Donald Trump’s America and forging closer ties with Europe, Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisted Monday night.
In a major foreign affairs-focused speech in the City of London, Starmer said his fledgling Labour government will continue to seek closer ties with a Trump-led United States — which is mulling tariffs on its traditional allies — and European capitals.
“The idea that we must choose between our allies, that somehow we’re with either America or Europe, is plain wrong,” Starmer said. “I reject it utterly.”
The U.K. prime minister — who has been at pains to talk up a good-natured dinner with Trump before the U.S. Republican won in November — sought to put Britain’s ties with America in a historical context. He reeled off past prime ministers who had worked with both the U.S. and Europe in times of upheaval, and pointed to the “shared sacrifice” of two world wars.
“[Clement] Attlee did not choose between allies,” Starmer said. “[Winston] Churchill did not choose. The national interest demands that we work with both.”
Starmer added: “Our relationship with the United States has been the cornerstone of our security and our prosperity for over a century. We will never turn away from that. We call it the special relationship for a reason. It is written not in some dry, dusty treaty, but in the ink of shared sacrifice.”
‘Hard-headed’
Trump’s victory has sent shockwaves through European capitals. The incoming U.S. president has repeatedly called on NATO members to do more to pay for their own defense, while the threat of tariffs looms large.
“This is not about sentimentality, it is about hard-headed realism,” Starmer said of the U.K.’s alliance with the U.S. “Time and again the best hope for the world and the surest way to serve our mutual national interest has come from our two nations working together. It still does.”
At the same time, Starmer’s government is pursuing a post-Brexit reset of relations with the European Union after years of bad blood, including an easing of trade friction with the bloc.
Trump’s repeated insistence that he will end the war in Ukraine early into his second presidency — without saying he wants Ukraine to win in its fight back against Russia’s full-scale invasion — has prompted concern from Ukraine’s EU allies.
Starmer argued in his speech that it is “deeply in our self-interest” to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
“I would encourage everyone here to stop and think for a moment about what it would mean to us, to our continent, to the world if Russia wins,” Starmer said.
“So we must continue to back Ukraine and do what it takes to support their self-defense for as long as it takes, to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position for negotiations so they can secure a just and lasting peace on their terms that guarantees their security, independence — and right to choose their own future,” he added.
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