Latest / The Fourcast / Did Starmer get anything for Ukraine from Trump 'love-in'?

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Did Starmer get anything for Ukraine from Trump 'love-in'? · The Fourcast

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Welcome to this special edition of the Forecast in Washington,
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DC, in front of the White House, where the Prime Minister, Sakir
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Starmer, has just met the president, Donald Trump.
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I think they had about an hour and a half in the Oval Office.
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And the most extraordinary thing about this meeting was what was
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said afterwards in the press conference.
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Now we often wonder whether a British Prime Minister under
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duress from an American president might have a so-called
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Love Actually moment from the famous Richard Curtis movie
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where the Prime Minister stands up and reminds the American
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president of all the values and principles that make modern
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Britain. Well, what we got today wasn't
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Love Actually, It was actually love between Starmer and Trump.
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How on earth did that happen? What does it mean for the
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relationship between London and Washington?
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What does it mean crucially for the visitor of President
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Zelensky, which is also imminent, And of course, war and
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peace in Ukraine. With me here to discuss this,
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fresh from the Oval Office and the press briefing, Gary Gibbon,
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our political editor. And here on the roof, Lindsay
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Hilson, our international editor.
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Gary, you're in a bit of a hurry, so let me start with you.
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How surprised were you by the the kind of vibes in that press
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conference? Yeah, they're not, they're
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they're not exactly twins separated at birth, are they?
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Kier Starmer and Donald Trump, there was no guarantee of
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chemistry. There was a lot of nervousness
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in Whitehall before this meeting.
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Although Keir Starmer himself said I have a wonderful
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relationship with Donald Trump, I'm not sure any of us believe
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that Donald Trump would remotely actually like the company of
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Keir Starmer. We hadn't seen the two in public
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together. There was a private meeting when
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Donald Trump was a candidate for the presidency.
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Today we saw the two together and it really did surprise you
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because in the press conference that just finished, there was
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Donald Trump saying all sorts of gushing things about Keir
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Starmer. He said the guy's a fantastic
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negotiator, blows his socks off. Whatever you pay him back in
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Britain, you should pay him more.
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He may well, Donald Trump implied, Keir Starmer may well
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have stopped Britain being subject to tariffs.
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And it was a great big loving as you suggested and it had been
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preceded by the moment in the Oval Office when Keir Starmer
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like some sort of royal the query from the Tudor period say
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I bear a message from the king and handed him this letter which
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silently Donald Trump then read in front of everybody.
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We're inviting him for a state visit.
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Someone said that was a bit like giving a a a nice new rattle to
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a very badly behaved baby. He looked absolutely,
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ecstatically delighted with it. They brought it up again and
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again in this press conference. So the optics have been good.
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But on the way out just now, one of the British officials said to
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me, I bet you've never seen anything like that before.
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And I scratched my head and I thought, you know what?
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I think I did see something a little bit like that before.
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When Theresa May came here in 2017 and met Donald Trump in his
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first presidency. And I remember the Theresa May
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gang walking away. They hadn't had quite that sort
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of gushing, loving remarks, but they got some of the stuff they
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wanted out of Donald Trump said on camera.
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And then, you know, lo and behold, they were on the plane,
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as it happens, to Turkey for their next trip.
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And Donald Trump announced a ban on Muslims, which they didn't
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feel they've been entirely kept in in touch with in that
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meeting, although there's a suggestion that they should have
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been listening more carefully. But anyway, things can suddenly
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ambush you, Donald Trump saying I won't need to put tariffs on
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you because it looks like we're going to have a great trade
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agreement very quickly. What trade agreements aren't
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very quick. And then we come back, as we're
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going to discuss, I'm sure, to the matter of Ukraine and what's
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really resolved there. Not much, I suspect.
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Well, I wonder how long this warm glow of new found
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friendship will last because there was no detail I could
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discern on the actual security guarantees for troops on the
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ground in Ukraine. And of course, there was very
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little detail about any trade deals.
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And he did hint, you know, that maybe, maybe, maybe Britain
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would be exempted from any tariffs.
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But I have to say I wouldn't take any of that to the bank and
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try and cash it in. No.
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And on, on when it came to the backstop, the assurance that
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Britain is looking for, that if British forces go and work on
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this buffer zone between Ukraine and Russian occupied Ukraine,
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they can call on, as one official put it to me, the
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American cavalry, air, air support and all sorts of other
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things that only America can really supply.
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And what Keir Starmer said when he was asked, have you got
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assurances on the backstop? Our teams are going to talk
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about that. Well, I bet they are.
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Because what you find again and again in the discussions around
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this whole idea that Donald Trump has a plan on Ukraine is
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that actually he doesn't. It's Wizard of Oz pulled back
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the curtain, and there's nothing really there.
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There's an impatient president, lots of people rushing around
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trying to say and do things, but actually nothing that you could
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really call a plan. Now, Gary, I know that you're in
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a massive hurry. You might be yanked away from us
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at any minute to get back on the school bus to Andrews Air Force
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Base and fly back to London. But if you can hold on for a few
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minutes and holler. If you can't, I just want to
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bring in Lindsay. It's something about that
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Britishness, I think, which obviously seems to impress
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President Trump. And so, you know, and that I
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think the Prime Minister played on very well.
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But the other thing, which was very interesting, as you
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suggest. So, you know, last week he said
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he called President Zelensky a dictator.
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He was asked this morning, you know, do you still think he's a
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dictator? He says, did I say that he
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couldn't remember? And then he said in the press
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conference that he had a lot of respect for President Zelensky.
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And the bravery of them. Yes, he talked about how the how
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the Ukrainians had fought very bravely against the Russians.
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So you got a sense then, I suppose that the the British and
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the French maybe before them have actually had some impact
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that or is it just that he repeats what the last person he
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spoken to said? And is Vladimir Putin going to
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be on the phone to him quick as a flash saying, you know, it's
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not like that. Believe what I say.
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What I say is very different. Gary, I mean, President Trump
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famously believes what the last person in the room told him.
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And the last person in the room today was Keir Starmer.
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How does you know, how does Britain, how does the government
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convert what, you know, this very warm kind of milk toast of
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an atmosphere into actual currency on the world stage?
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I'm sure they'll be popping the champagne corks at the embassy
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residence tonight, but how does it actually work from now?
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And can it all fall apart? Yes.
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And it works with incredible difficulty.
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We are dealing with one of the most extraordinary elected
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leaders the world has ever seen. He just happens to be the leader
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of the most powerful, the richest nation in the world and
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the world that used to give a security guarantee to our
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country and a large chunk of Europe as well.
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And he says he doesn't want to do all sorts of things that
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America has done before. And I think you might be able to
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see any moment, perhaps I'll move to one side.
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Keir Starmer leaving this what I'm no doubt sure he will think
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is a very successful. Maybe he's not quite leaving
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yet. Maybe, maybe the love in
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continues and they've moved to the sofa.
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But he, he. Yeah.
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It's going to. Be incredibly difficult to
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convert this into realities because that that's, that's the
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nature of this beast, Donald Trump and that, you know, all
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this little moment shouldn't distract from that.
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He is an incredibly difficult man to predict.
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He doesn't necessarily stick to what he's just said, but what he
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fundamentally thinks is radically different from
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anything we've had from America before.
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And Gary, it was interesting, wasn't it, because in the last
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week, we've all, you know, we've heard from the new German
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Chancellor of Europe has to wean itself off American security.
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You know, Macron has been pretty critical about Trump as well in
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the past. And, and there was this
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speculation amongst us that actually the combination of, of,
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of mass of, of Trump's capriciousness and geography
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will move Britain closer and closer to the EU under the
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umbrella of security perhaps. And I listened to Starmer today.
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It didn't really sound like that.
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I have. To say no, we've had a few
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moments recently where, oh, there's the president.
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Can you have a chat with him? Throw him a question?
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Come on, Gary. He doesn't.
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He doesn't know he's gone back in.
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He doesn't normally, we were asking before, you know, does
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he? Does he come out and people
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said, well, he's just a rule unto himself.
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He does. Presidents don't normally do
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that, but this guy just doesn't play by the rules at all.
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Back to your point about Europe, though, we've heard a few Times
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Now Keir Starmer talking about how he, when we thought he would
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dance towards Europe more, he's actually pulled away from Europe
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a bit. But he was talking about it on
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AI regulation a few weeks ago and said actually he was he was
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actually quite chuffed about the opportunities of Brexit.
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Yes, Keir Starmer was saying this a man who wanted a second
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referendum after the first one and and he's done it a few
9:09
times. But at the same time, there is
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going to be a bit of cozying up to Europe on some things or an
9:14
attempt to do that. And the very interestingly, when
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Donald Trump was asked about that in the earlier moment in
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the Oval Office, he didn't seem to say that that would that
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would preclude if Keir Starmer went down that route, that would
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preclude a close relationship with the United States.
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So I think they'll take again. That is a win.
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But my goodness, can you really bank these things?
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One of the things which I find so interesting is the way
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diplomacy has been turned upside down and we've gone through the
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looking glass. What normally happens with a
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meeting between world leaders is that the civil servants, the
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Sherpas, the diplomats, they organize everything in advance.
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They are the ones who have the long and complex negotiations,
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and then the principles come up at the end.
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They dot the IS, they cross the T's, they do the big signature,
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but it's all planned in advance. France now the way President
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Trump does it is exactly the opposite.
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So now the British civil servants, the Foreign Office
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officials who were on the trip, they're going to be going back
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and saying, well, how can we make any of this real?
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How can we make any of it stick? How can we make any of it
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actually translate into action? I don't know whether.
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They can. And, and maybe the whole point
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was that there was a complete absence of detail about the kind
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of security guarantees that the Americans might be offering that
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the Brits were certainly hoping for.
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I mean, they may have discussed them in private, We don't know.
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But in the absence of those guarantees, the question
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remains, is the offer of the British troops to Ukraine a trap
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that the Brits might fall into? Well, but also we are so far
10:44
ahead of ourselves. The the Russian Foreign minister
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Sergei Lavrov has been very clear this week, we will not
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accept any NATO troops, British, French, whatever, as part of a
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peacekeeping force if there is any kind of peace deal over
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Ukraine. He's completely clear about
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that. There is no way that Vladimir
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Putin is going to accept that. So it could be that the British
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are offering something in order to give something to the
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Americans as well as the increase in defence expenditure.
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But safe in the knowledge that this is very, very unlikely to
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fly. And one thing that Donald Trump
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did say today is, look, we are a bit far away from it.
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We haven't got a deal yet. That's the first time I've heard
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him say that. Because normally what he says
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about the deal, the deal is, oh, it's going to be so easy to
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create this piece. It's not going to be easy.
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My school bus, as you referred to it, is literally leaving now
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and I have to run to get on the Prime Minister's plane and get
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to the airport. One thing I would love to point
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out is a lot of people when Keir Starmer was adjusting big time
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Labour policy earlier this week and doing a away with one of the
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one of the, one of the central, a central part of the creed of
11:56
the Labour Party, overseas aid spending and shifting across to
12:00
defence. Some people felt a little part
12:02
of the Labour Party's soul died at that moment.
12:05
Interestingly, I suspect, in fact, I know Morgan McSweeney,
12:08
the chief of staff who was in these meetings today, was not
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one of those. And he rather thinks that that
12:13
moment, that rather Trumpian moment as some people called it,
12:17
worked rather well. And that maybe if Labour had
12:19
come in clanging around the the the kitchen pans a bit more like
12:24
Donald Trump did when he came into office, with moves like
12:27
that, they would have connected more with the voters giving
12:30
themselves more space to do things like winter fuel
12:32
allowance and generally had a a better start to their time in
12:36
power. That will be a very interesting
12:39
rethink of Labour to watch. Gary, I'm going to let you go.
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Thank you very much for your time.
12:43
Thank you. We are the left behind, Lindsay,
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you, me on the roof. But there's still, there's still
12:47
some more stuff to talk about. I just can't really get my head
12:50
around that atmosphere in the White House.
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And just trying to imagine what happens tomorrow when Zelensky
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turns up. Yeah.
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Because that's the real. Yeah.
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There's so much at stake here. There's the minerals deal.
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There's security guarantees. And it's been amazingly wishy
13:05
washy, hasn't it? It has, and I think that one
13:07
should think so. You know, it seems that world
13:10
leaders, we looked at Macron earlier this week's summer
13:12
today, you know, they have to tread a line.
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It's a line between flattery and standing up to Donald Trump.
13:19
And I think it was interesting to watch the Prime Minister
13:21
today and see how he did that. Yes, there was the flattery and
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there was the letter and the invitation.
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And but he did. Say there was, you know, when
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asked about Putin, he said, I think my views on Putin are
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clear. And he did say, you know, he
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also, you know, stuck up for, for Ukraine.
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He was clear that, you know, that Russia was the aggressor
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and so on. So I think he he tried to to
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tread that line. It's interesting to see that at
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the moment, President Trump does seem to have rode back a bit
13:53
being more accommodating of Zelensky.
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And then the the minerals deal is interesting.
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Now as you know and I've said before, I am your minerals and
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metals correspondent. I could love that.
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I love it when. Did that start by the way?
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Oh, it started back in. On a lonely night.
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It's in winter, many years ago. It started in Inner Mongolia in
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2000 and. 9 When I first I've got nothing to encounter with.
14:18
That when I first looked at rare metals, because the whole point
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is that it is the China who controls the the processing of
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rare metals. And this is one of the things
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that's very interesting. So President Trump started this
14:32
whole thing about the minerals and metals deal with with
14:35
Ukraine. But the idea that, you know,
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basically we're going to extract everything and we're going to
14:39
get all the profit. But the deal as it stands at the
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moment, I read the the draft yesterday.
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It's not like that. It's actually about
14:46
reconstruction of Ukraine. It doesn't look too bad for
14:50
Ukraine at all. And also it's not at all clear
14:53
when these minerals and metals could actually, you know, reap a
14:57
profit. It takes a long time to dig a
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mine. It's very complex located, it
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takes a lot of investment. Where is that money going to
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come from? And so I, you know, if they sign
15:07
it tomorrow and it looks like they will sign it, it's not
15:11
clear that that is going to do what President Trump wants,
15:15
which is get America a lot of money from Ukraine in the short
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term. But are we missing a trick here,
15:20
as we sometimes do? But actually, Donald Trump, by
15:23
putting out the kind of ridiculous and maximalist
15:25
position at the start of the conversation, I want half a
15:28
trillion U.S. dollars has back payment for for the weapons and
15:32
the help that we gave you. And now he's, you know, that
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that number's moved down to I think 350.
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It's still a lot of money. But but is that what he does?
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You know, he comes up with something that is utterly
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shocking. Yes.
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Everyone is running around like headless chickens and then
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suddenly a week later, you know, everyone settles on a landing
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strip which has something slightly more reasonable.
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But so you're saying it's like the bazaar in Marrakech?
15:50
Yeah. Well, he would say it's the art
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of the deal, OK. He would say that, look, some of
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the things that Donald Trump says, you know, he repeats
15:58
himself a lot and a lot of those things are not true.
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So he says that America has provided $350 billion worth of,
16:07
you know, of aid to Ukraine, which is not true.
16:09
It's between 100 and 100 and. You also said the Europeans have
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provided a lot less, which is also.
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Which is not true because the America is the biggest single
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donor, but the Europeans have, you know provided about the
16:20
same. And then the other thing is that
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he always says, you know, that the Europeans just do loans and
16:26
we do grants. That's not true.
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Both do loans and grants. But yes, there is obviously you
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know, he is moving backwards and forwards on this.
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But I think that the other issue, which you have to be
16:37
aware of is that today an American delegation met a
16:41
Russian delegation in Istanbul to improve relations.
16:46
And Putin, he will play hardball because one thing Putin isn't is
16:50
mercurial, and another thing Putin isn't is a waiver and a
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man who decides what he's going to say depending on the last
16:57
thing he heard. And in the end, this does come
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down to Putin and what Putin decides to do.
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And he will strike a very hard deal, if any deal at all.
17:07
Because he can carry on the war. He's got a war economy.
17:11
He doesn't care how many thousands more Russian troops
17:13
are killed in the process. And the the ball is very much in
17:16
his court. And Donald Trump, what has
17:19
Donald Trump won from all this? The Nobel Peace Prize, but also
17:22
because Obama got one and he hasn't had one yet.
17:24
Yes. And I think that's important.
17:25
So his vanity is out there. And for Putin, it's about his
17:29
mission to save basic subject. Let's go back to 2017 and do you
17:33
remember the big beautiful deal that there was going to be with
17:37
Kim Jong Un of North? Korea What happened to that?
17:39
Well, it was a photo op and then nothing more.
17:42
And so, you know, Donald Trump doesn't always follow through.
17:46
And I think that Vladimir Putin does always follow through.
17:50
He knows exactly what he wants. And what he wants is not just
17:54
Ukrainian territory. He wants to control Ukraine.
17:57
He wants to control the Ukrainian government and that's
18:00
why he fed all this stuff into President Trump's ear about how
18:05
Ukraine hadn't had elections and all of this and all of this
18:09
stuff. And one of the issues which
18:11
certainly urged von der Leyen was saying earlier this week was
18:14
that, you know, if Donald Trump does do a deal which basically
18:19
allows President Putin to control, to keep control of a
18:24
lot of Ukraine and to maybe come back from more to control the
18:28
government and so on, then that is assigned to any autocrat or
18:32
any leader, for example, President Xi Jinping of China.
18:36
He certainly has his eyes on Taiwan.
18:38
We're going to wrap it up, Lindsay, but I just want you to
18:39
look at look at this extraordinary scene, the White
18:43
House looking very white today because of the black clouds, you
18:46
know, the promise of rain. The guy was only inaugurated,
18:50
What is it, 5 1/2 weeks ago or so?
18:52
Yeah. It seems like, you know, the old
18:54
Lenin statement. Yes.
18:55
You know, there are decades when nothing happens and there are
18:57
weeks when decades happen. It feels like that still,
18:59
doesn't it? It does, and remember one other
19:02
important thing. The bust of Winston Churchill
19:05
has been moved back to the Oval Office.
19:07
Did Winston Churchill have elections during the?
19:10
War he did not. He did not, and that is what
19:14
President Putin has told President Trump that Zelensky
19:17
has to do. Winston Churchill wins, Maybe.
19:20
Well, Lindsay, thank you very much.
19:22
And of course to Gary Gibbon, who's hurtling some motorcade to
19:25
Andrews Air Force Base to get back on a plane with the Prime
19:27
Minister and fly overnight to London.
19:30
Thanks to both of you for this special edition of the forecast
19:33
from Washington DCI. Hope you enjoyed it.