1 hour ago
7
Donald Trump has told Britain it should “call out the military” to control its borders during a tightly controlled summit in which Keir Starmer ducked major flashpoints with the US president.
During a potentially difficult two-day state visit for the government, Trump has for the most part avoided exploiting tensions, although he described the UK’s plan to recognise a Palestinian state as “one of our few disagreements”.
The UK is preparing to formally acknowledge Palestine as early as Friday, after Israel failed to meet conditions that would have postponed the historic step, including a ceasefire in Gaza. Starmer insisted the timing had nothing to do with Trump’s visit.
Trump’s visit, which was officially hosted by King Charles, came at the end of a turbulent few weeks for Starmer in which he lost his deputy, Angela Rayner, and was attacked for his handling of the Peter Mandelson row, with his position as leader coming under question by his own MPs.
However, Downing Street sources said that his efforts in building a close relationship with Trump, despite criticism at home for doing so, had reaped rewards, with the pageantry of the state visit apparently helping to secure £150bn of promised investment in the UK by US companies.
At a closely managed press conference at Chequers, his official country residence, that prevented Trump taking many questions from journalists, Starmer avoided major potential bear traps, including coming under pressure over Mandelson’s links with convicted paedophile Jeffery Epstein.
The president dismissed a question about the former US ambassador. “I don’t know him,” he said, even though the pair have met previously, including talks on whisky tariffs in the Oval Office earlier this month. Trump has previously praised Mandelson’s “beautiful accent”.
Trump ended the state visit with a warning that illegal migration could destroy the UK, telling Starmer that he should follow the US in taking tough action to stop migrants unlawfully crossing its southern border.
“I think your situation is very similar. You have people coming in and I told the prime minister I would stop it, and it doesn’t matter if you call out the military, it doesn’t matter what means you use,” Trump said.
“It destroys countries from within and we’re actually now removing a lot of the people that came into our country.”
The first Channel migrant was deported to France on Thursday under Starmer’s “one in, one out” deal, with further flights due to take place in coming days.
With public concern rising over the UK’s borders, and Nigel Farage’s Reform exploiting tensions over the issue, Downing Street believes it has to stop the highly visible crossings. The UK will accept an equal number of people through a newly established safe and legal route.
Some Labour MPs have already suggested the government should send the Royal Navy into the Channel to prevent small boat crossings, an approach tried and failed under Boris Johnson in 2022 and 2023.
Starmer has also come under pressure from his own party over the situation in Gaza, and the UK is preparing to recognise the state of Palestine ahead of a UN summit next week, even though the US opposes the move.
While Starmer spoke of the “humanitarian catastrophe” unfolding in the devastated territory at Chequers, neither man condemned Israel’s actions in the strip, which has seen IDF troops pressing ahead with a ground offensive into Gaza City, forcing more people to flee their homes.
Trump, asked when he would put more pressure on Israel to halt its military offensive, focused almost exclusively on the Israeli hostages captured by Hamas. He patted the prime minister on the back when he said the group would play no part in any future government.
The US, now effectively opposed to a two-state solution as unobtainable and undesirable, has rejected the UK move as unhelpful, but Trump has decided not to make the matter a point of division with Starmer on the basis that Washington sees it as a largely symbolic act.
In a significant change of tone on the Ukraine conflict, Trump said that Vladimir Putin had “really let me down”, to the delight of British officials who had hoped to use the unprecedented second state visit to isolate the Russian president on the world stage.
“He’s killing many people, and he’s losing more people than he’s killing. The Russian soldiers are being killed at a higher rate than the Ukrainian soldiers,” Trump said.
Just a month after the US president held talks in Alaska with Putin, he admitted he had thought it would be easier to negotiate a truce between the two countries. He did not say how he would put pressure on the Kremlin to end the war but urged Nato countries to stop buying Russian oil.
In the biggest surprise of the press conference, Trump revealed the US is seeking to retake control of Bagram airbase from the Taliban after it was surrendered during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The US views it as an important strategic foothold in the region, which could help counter the threat of growing Chinese military might. “One of the reasons we want the base is, as you know, it’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons,” he said.
In another point of difference, Trump praised North Sea oil as a “phenomenal asset” and urged the UK to use more of it, while he dismissed wind power as a “very expensive joke”. Starmer, meanwhile, defended the importance of an energy mix, including renewables.
After a weekend in which Starmer eventually spoke out against some of the rhetoric at the largest nationalist protest in decades, organised by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson, it seemed inevitable that Trump would echo the criticisms of JD Vance over free speech in the UK.
However, Trump avoided any conflict on the issue. The prime minister told reporters, including a large US press pack, that the government would protect free speech “jealously and fiercely and always will”. He also condemned the killing of the far-right activist Charlie Kirk: “Whatever our political views, it is shocking and is to be condemned.”
And Starmer, who is not religious, responded to questions by the US media about whether the UK was a Christian country by pointing out that he had been christened, and so “that is my church, has been all my life”. He added that the religion was “wired into” the informal constitution but added he was proud that the UK celebrated other faiths too.
