Keir Starmer has said that he ‘likes and respects’ US President Donald Trump.
In an interview with the New York Times the Prime Minister said he understands what Trump is trying to achieve
“President Trump has a point when he says there needs to be a greater burden borne by European countries for the collective self-defence of Europe,” he said.
Starmer continued to say that the UK did not need to choose a side between Europe and the US.
“Churchill didn’t do it. Attlee didn’t do it. It’d be a big mistake, in my view, to choose now,” he said.
“On a person-to-person basis, I think we have a good relationship,” he said of his relations with Trump.
“I like and respect him. I understand what he’s trying to achieve.”
Starmer continued to admit that Trump had caused “quite a degree of disorientation”, but that the best response was to not be flustered by it.
“On the day in which the Oval Office meeting between President Trump and President Zelenskyy didn’t go particularly well, we were under pressure to come out very critically with, you know, flowery adjectives to describe how others felt,” Starmer said.
“I took the view that it was better to pick up the phone and talk to both sides to try and get them back on the same page.”
It comes after Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said that plans for a “coalition of the willing” to support a ceasefire in Ukraine was just a “posture and a pose”.
Witkoff claimed that the notion was a “simplistic” vision of Europe, and that they are thinking they ‘have all got to be like Winston Churchill’.
He then went on to say he does now “regard Putin as a bad guy” and he “liked” the Russian leader.
Although No 10 have not responded directly to these comments, Rachel Reeves told Laura Kuenssberg that she was “not put off by that.”
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