LONDON — It’s impact time. The asteroid that Britain — and much of the world — has been watching slowly arrive for the last few months has finally struck. Donald Trump has been sworn in as the 47th president of the United States.
In London, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s center-left government has been preparing for this moment since even before the Nov. 4 election — because the shockwaves will be seismic.
The MAGA chief’s influence over NATO, conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, trade and the resulting hit to the cost of living, as well as the impact on democracy itself by one of his top allies, are all at the forefront of British political firefighting.
Let POLITICO walk you through the most immediately pressing issues Starmer’s government will be on the watch for in Trump’s new world.
Clarity on Mr Tariff’s big trade threat
Taking Donald Trump seriously, but not necessarily literally, is the approach diplomats and ministers will need to revive for his second act. This very much includes his threats on tariffs — as high as 20 percent for most of the world and 60 percent for China.
Starmer’s Britain is trying to get closer to the EU once again (without crossing the red lines of single market or customs union membership) while simultaneously trying to broker stronger ties with the States.
Trade officials will be exploring whether the U.K. can secure carve-outs for some of the most punitive areas should Trump’s feared isolationist policies bite.
Movement on a long-coveted US trade deal
It was touted as one of the major benefits that Brexit would bring — but more than eight years on from the referendum and it’s none the closer. Successive prime ministers including Boris Johnson failed to get a U.S. free trade deal to materialize during the first Trump administration, nor under Joe Biden, who put negotiating a major new pact on ice.
Pursuing state-by-state deals has since been fruitful — but Starmer told POLITICO he wants talks between the U.K. and the U.S. at the federal level to resume within weeks.
Signs of Trump’s plan to end the Ukraine war
Britain has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters ever since Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops to launch a full-scale invasion in February 2022. All-out war in Europe has felt uncomfortably close to home for many Britons, and Starmer has raised the prospect of U.K. troops being sent in to help police any peace deal.
But one of the most pressing concerns is that Trump — who is seen as far more admiring of Putin than most European allies — could permit a more favorable deal for the Russian president that could leave him emboldened to up the ante once more. Starmer’s government has made a point of publicly doubling down on its support for Ukraine since Trump’s November win — and has urged European allies to do the same.
A sign-off on the UK’s ambo pick
Starmer has broken with decades of precedent to pick a politician to succeed Karen Pierce as Britain’s ambassador to the U.S. Pierce is highly respected both back in the U.K. and in Washington, having deftly built firm relations with Trump’s camp during her nearly five years in D.C. In her place, the PM has put forward Peter Mandelson.
The veteran of the last Labour government, who’s both firmly supportive of the EU and has advocated closer ties with China, has been subject to briefings suggesting Trump’s team could block the appointment of the Labour member of the House of Lords. However, there is a sneaking suspicion that some of this may have been whipped up by the camp of Nigel Farage, the Brexiteer friend of Trump who would really like to be an envoy to Washington himself.
Downing Street, playing down suggestions they could resort to a Plan B on Monday, told reporters: “Lord Mandelson is our candidate for ambassador and we think he’ll make an excellent ambassador. He’ll be working for our whole country in the national interest.”
Letting bygones be bygones
Starmer’s team will be frantically trying to secure a visit to the White House now that Trump has been sworn in. But maintaining the fabled “special relationship” between Britain and the U.S. will be strained by the opposing policy platforms of the two nation’s leaders — and the fact Starmer and many of his left-leaning lieutenants have said less than favorable things about Trump in the past.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy — whose insults of Trump include branding him a “tyrant in a toupee,” a “serial liar and a cheat,” and “deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic” — has been leading efforts to make amends and was giving the MAGA leader a last-minute love-bombing in media interviews on Monday.
Lammy told BBC Radio 4 he’d warmed to the president-elect in a face-to-face meeting last year, finding him a “good host, very funny, very friendly, very warm about the U.K.” Lammy suggested that Starmer hopes to get out to the States “within the next few weeks.” Expect Britain to pull out all the stops trying to achieve that one.
Thumbs-up for Britain’s Chagos deal
Back in the Biden days, the U.K. worked up a deal to hand over the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius — an historic agreement that aimed to secure the crucial joint U.K.-U.S. airbase on Diego Garcia while relinquishing the hotly-disputed sovereignty of the islands in the Indian Ocean.
But this was all complicated by elections in Mauritius that ushered in a new leader who wanted a more favorable agreement, and by allies of Trump pouring scorn on the treaty. Among them has been Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who told POLITICO the deal poses a “serious threat” to national security because of concerns about China.
Britain has held off on signing the deal until Trump gets his feet back under the Resolute Desk. Ministers have been putting a lot of stock in the president’s agreeing the agreement is needed once he receives assessments from the Pentagon and the State Department.
The undoubtedly turbulent weeks ahead will show whether that’s wishful thinking.
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