By Irwin Stelzer
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Keir Starmer did almost everything right. He headed for lunch with the President, leaving the British Embassy’s Jaguars and Land Rovers in the garage. Instead, he relied on a made-in-America (probably) Chevy Suburban, presumably part of the Secret Service’s fleet of bullet-proof gas guzzlers. That might take Trump’s mind off the fact that the UK exports £8 billion worth of cars to the US every year, making America the main destination of UK car exports. But it won’t change Trump’s mind that reciprocity is the cornerstone of his tariff policy. America taxes imported cars at a 2.5 per cent rate; the UK imposes a 10 per cent import duty and 20 per cent VAT on imports of American cars. To add insult to what Trump undoubtedly sees as injury, the 20 per cent VAT is applied to the value of the car, including the 10 per cent tariff.
It is one of history’s little ironies that Starmer and the Labour party opposed Brexit, which just might spare Britain the reciprocal tariffs he will apply to the EU. Trump said at one of the press conferences he thought Brexit was a good idea, was glad it had passed, and that it would ‘prove out over the centuries… it already has worked out.’ Starmer now seeks to use Brexit to distinguish Britain from the EU bloc that Trump feels was set up to screw America – a word he later characterised as ‘not nice’ – and is doing just that.
Although Trump did not soften his insistence that VAT is a de facto tariff, he dropped a broad hint that ‘we’re going to make some great trade agreements with the UK’ that tariffs would not be as necessary ‘in the case of two great, friendly countries’ as they would in the case of the EU.
Trump can create a UK exemption by citing America’s $12 billion trade surplus with Britain, its large foreign investment in America, and Britain’s decision to join America in refusing to sign a Macron-Modi instituted programme for regulating AI. At the bare minimum, the negotiating teams will have to come up with something that allows Trump to say he has done what he promised, and treated the UK differently from the EU.
Starmer also received a bit of a lift from Trump’s announcement of joint plans to develop AI and other technologies. What this will look like when fleshed out by the assigned teams, is hard to tell. But the programme might include an agreement for minimal regulation, and an end to the law suits that Trump pointed out are costing America’s high tech companies billions, investigation of Google’s search and advertising business and Apple’s position in the mobile browser and app markets by UK regulators. Harassment resulting from envy, as the President sees it.
Then there is Starmer’s decision to bring Foreign Secretary David Lammy along. Starmer’s leading foreign policy adviser, at least on paper, had at one time called Trump a ‘woman-hating neo-Nazi sympathy sociopath’. All was believed forgiven at a convivial dinner at Mar-a-Lago, but Lammy resumed his assault on the then-President-elect. He called Trump’s statement of America’s interest in Greenland ‘destabilising’ rhetoric, and expressed annoyance that Trump was demanding Nato members spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence while America was spending, he said, only 3.38 per cent. Lest Trump not be sufficiently riled, Lammy dismissed Trump’s claim to be negotiating with Putin, ‘I see no evidence that Putin wants to come to the table to negotiate.’
Perhaps the afterglow of Starmer’s use of his most potent weapon – the Royal Family – was sufficient to block annoyance at Lammy’s presence. The invitation from King Charles to an unprecedented second state visit – an event Lammy had earlier ruled out as too complicated to schedule this year – was for the President the highlight of a busy week.
The personal chemistry was fine, the pleasantries profuse and as sincere as politicians can conjure. To this observer, the visual impression was of a President in complete command of his multiple briefs, answering questions directly with the exception of evading one asking him whether he would apologise to President Zelensky for calling him a dictator. Starmer, on the other hand, was tentative, often referring answers to work being done by the nations’ ‘teams’.
Starmer needed Trump to commit to backstopping Europe should Putin violate any agreement that emerges from his negotiations. Trump insisted that Putin, who has violated almost every treaty he has signed, would in this case keep his word, making discussion of America’s Nato obligation to come to the aid of an ally whose peacekeepers are attacked irrelevant. He tried to avoid embarrassing Starmer by noting that the two countries always had each other’s backs, and arguing that the presence of Americans developing the natural resources of Ukraine would deter Putin from rolling into Ukraine. The President pointed out that Winston Churchill’s bust has been restored to what Starmer called its ‘rightful place’ in the Oval Office, but was unequivocal about America’s future role in European affairs, ‘I’m not going to make security guarantees… We’re going to have Europe do that.’ It had the feel of a parent gently but firmly telling a child that the training wheels had to come off his bicycle. My guess is that Starmer will get promises of help with intelligence and logistical support for any boots Europe and Britain will put on the new Ukrainian border, leaving US troops in Poland as long planned, so the US can continue its pivot to the Indo-Pacific.
It is impossible to end this narrative without noting a major policy difference between the two leaders, one that Starmer insisted on highlighting. Asked by a journalist about the prospect for renewal of the current Gaza cease fire, Trump said it was difficult to predict, that he was working hard to get an extension of the truce, but it was far from certain he would succeed. Starmer could have remained silent, but jumped at what he must have seen as an opportunity to score political points at home. He almost teared up as he said he had been moved when a British citizen was released in a hostage deal, with two fingers and her hand damaged. In a display of displaced moral equivalence, he spoke of the ‘thousands of Palestinians marching through the rubble, trying to return to their communities and their homes… We must all support them in doing that.’ He added a need to continue supporting a two-state solution. All of these positions are a direct repudiation of Trump’s proposals, to which the President responded by reporting on the horrible condition of freed hostages. Little wonder that a Fox News commentator reported earlier in the day that Jews of means are fleeing Britain.
Starmer apparently believes the special relationship means he is free to expect serious support from Trump for Britain’s post-deal policy in Ukraine, while Trump can expect in return an attack on his Middle East policy. Trump is a transactional president – every quid has its quo. When and how Trump will retaliate for Starmer’s use of what Teddy Roosevelt called the ‘White House bully pulpit’ to attack his host’s policies we do not yet know.