PM meets Donald Trump in New York for talks ahead of US election
The meeting was arranged so the politicians could 'get to know each other', Sir Keir Starmer has not been able to schedule a similar appointment with Democratic candidate and vice president Kamala Harris
Sir Keir Starmer has met with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during his visit to New York for talks ahead of November’s US election.
The PM said he wanted to meet Trump face to face because “I’m a great believer in personal relationships on the world stage”.
The meeting has the potential to be diplomatically awkward, not just because of Trump’s bombastic style but also because Starmer has not been able to schedule a similar appointment with Democratic candidate and vice president Kamala Harris.
ITV News Political Editor Robert Peston analyses the potentially "tense" meeting between Keir Starmer and Donald Trump
Ahead of the meeting at Trump Tower, Starmer told reporters: “I’ve said a number of times, I want to meet both candidates. We’ve now got the opportunity to meet Trump, which is good.
“Obviously, I still want to speak to Harris as well. But you know, the usual diary challenges, but it’s good that this one now has been fixed. It’ll be really to establish a relationship between the two of us."
Foreign Secretary David Lammy – who called Trump a “racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser” in 2017 and promised to protest on the streets if he visited the UK – also attended the meeting.
Speaking at a press conference before they met, Trump said he thought Starmer was “very nice”.
He said: “I actually think he’s very nice. He ran a great race, he did very well, it’s very early, he’s very popular.”
The presidential candidate added praise for Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. He said: “I think Nigel is great, I’ve known him for a long time. He had a great election too, picked up a lot of seats, more seats than he was allowed to have actually.
"They acknowledged that he won but for some reason you have a strange system over there, you might win them but you don’t get them,” he added.
Starmer said the UK embassy team, led by ambassador Dame Karen Pierce, “has got good relations with both camps and has had for a long time”.
“So it’s not the sort of start of something, it’s the continuation of those good relations that have been there with both camps, and that’s a really good thing that the embassy has been doing.”
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Asked whether he would be prepared to stand up to Trump on issues such as support for Ukraine, Starmer said: “The first thing I think is important to say in relation to this is we’ve obviously had a special relationship with the US for a long time, forged in really difficult circumstances.
“That always sits above whoever holds the particular office, either in the US or the UK. And it is really important. I think it’s probably as strong now as it’s ever been, in relation to the Middle East and Ukraine.
“And you’ve seen how closely I’ve been working with the US in relation to both of those issues. The US people will decide who they want as their president, and we will work with whoever is president, as you would expect."
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