UK’s Starmer to urge Trump to keep backing Kiev – Times
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will try to persuade US President-elect Donald Trump to maintain Washington’s support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, The Times has reported.
According to Downing Street, Starmer could visit the White House in “late January, early February,” a few weeks after Trump’s inauguration on January 20, the paper said in an article on Saturday.
While in Washington, he is expected to “strongly urge” the incoming US president, who earlier pledged to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, to keep sending weapons to Kiev.
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly claimed that he would end the fighting within a day of returning to the White House, and criticized the administration of US President Joe Biden for spending too much money on arming Ukraine.
According to some reports, he could try using American aid to Kiev as leverage to force Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to enter peace negotiations.
The Russian authorities have said they are ready for talks with Trump on settling the Ukraine conflict, but only if those negotiations recognize the situation on the ground.
Moscow also has repeatedly condemned Western military support for Ukraine, arguing that it only prolongs the fighting and increases the chance of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.
In October, Trump’s campaign accused Starmer’s Labour Party of “blatant foreign interference” in the US election. Back then, the US president-elect’s team filed a Federal Election Commission (FEC) over reports of British Labour activists campaigning in the US for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
On Friday, Trump slammed Britain over its windfall tax on North Sea oil producers, which is reportedly making some US companies consider ending their operations in the area altogether. “The UK is making a very big mistake. Open up the North Sea. Get rid of Windmills,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Last week, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has recently emerged as a close ally of Trump, called for early elections in the UK. He blamed Starmer for being “complicit in the rape of Britain” during his tenure as the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, from 2008 to 2013. Musk also pointed to the “absolutely stunning” decline in support for the Labour government, with only 12% approving of its performance, according to the latest poll by YouGov.
