As the two men kicked off their meeting in the Oval Office, Starmer handed Trump a letter from the King inviting him to come to Britain for a second state visit.
In his opening spiel, Starmer told Trump: “It is my pleasure to bring from His Majesty the King a letter, he sends his best wishes and regards of course, but he also asked me to bear this letter and bring it to you.”
The letter is thought to contain the suggestion of two separate trips – one to Balmoral, likely to take place this summer, and a later full-blown state visit at Windsor Castle.
US president Donald Trump holds up a letter from King Charles inviting him for a state visit (Photo by Carl Court – Pool/Getty Images)Backing the Chagos deal
British right-wingers have long hoped that the US administration would end up vetoing the proposed deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, on the grounds that the largest island Diego Garcia is home to an American naval base.
He added: “I think we’ll be inclined to go along with your country… It’s a little bit early, we have to yet be given the details, but it doesn’t sound bad.”
Asked whether he still thinks the Ukrainian President is a “dictator”, the US leader joked: “Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that.”
There was one moment of tension, however, when Trump repeated his claim that European countries are getting the money they gave to help Ukraine’s war efforts back, prompting a rebuttal from Starmer.
Giving Ukraine’s land back
But Trump sounded much more upbeat, saying: “There are a lot of areas that were taken, we will be talking about that and we will be seeing if we can get a lot of it back.”
And there was no commitment for the US to provide a “backstop” to a Europe-wide peacekeeping force – instead, Trump suggested that Putin could be trusted to respect the terms of a peace deal, saying: “I’ve known him for a long time now and… I don’t believe he’s going to violate his word.”
Backing Brexit
The President said: “I think we have just a great relationship… Frankly what they did was the right thing at the time and probably prove out over the centuries, you have a long time to go.
“I predicted it would happen and it did happen. It will work itself out, I think it’s already worked itself out.”
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