Turbulence, Not Rupture: The Special Relationship Under Trump 2.0 (Part I)
Regime Change in Washington Leaves London’s Ancien Régime Scrambling
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer headed to Washington a fortnight ago for his first official talks with re-elected President Donald Trump. For now, at least, their meeting has been interpreted as a PR victory in Downing Street: Starmer successfully charmed his mercurial host with lavish praise, a promise of increased defense spending, and an unprecedented invitation from King Charles III to come back for a second U.K. state visit. He even sounded like Trump when brandishing the invitation: “This has never happened before. It’s so incredible. It will be historic.”
Trump for his part seemed exceedingly pleased, offered plenty of smiles, and variously praised Starmer’s “beautiful accent”, his “beautiful, great” wife, and the prospect of a “very good” trade deal. So far, so good. But despite the bonhomie between the host and his guest, the meeting left many crucial questions unanswered: about Ukraine, NATO, the future of the Chagos Islands, trade, tariffs, and the limits of American patience with British infringements on free speech, in particular. On the most immediately pressing issue, the President was unmoved by Starmer’s appeal for a stronger U.S. commitment to “backstop”’ the security of Ukraine, beyond having U.S. workers there as part of a minerals deal. More broadly, the friendly mood music couldn’t obscure the fact that the two leaders are ideologically poles apart both domestically and in their views of the international order, in stark contrast to the relative harmony of past golden eras of the “special relationship”, like the Thatcher-Reagan crusade against socialism, and Tony Blair and Bill Clinton’s “third way” effort to redefine the world in the era of globalization. Despite the successful choreography of their “first date”, the Anglo-American relationship is resultantly likely to be on a tightrope over the next four years.
This article was first published on Courage.Media. You can read it on Ayaan’s new platform below:
One should not exaggerate. The Brits will remain America’s most reliable partner of choice, and are seen as such by the American public, 43% of whom in a recent poll named the UK as America’s closest ally (no other European country broke 10%); the UK for its part will continue to depend primarily on the United States for its security. The special intelligence and nuclear relationships between the two countries, embedded in the Five Eyes agreement and the US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement respectively, will likely continue even if the US scales back its commitment to NATO. They will continue to enjoy the world’s single most lucrative bilateral investment relationship, as well as the cultural bonds of a shared language and heritage – the “fraternal relationship of English- speaking peoples”, as Churchill put it, which will be brought to the fore by the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II on May 8th, and the 250th anniversary of America’s independence from Britain in July 2026. Nor will it hurt that Donald Trump is the first president since Woodrow Wilson to have a British mother and has a well-known affinity for her birthplace, Scotland, where he owns a gold course. Vice-President JD Vance for his part takes pride in his Scots-Irish ancestry, while “First Buddy” Elon Musk has referenced a touching sympathy for the country from which most of his ancestors also came.