As Ed Miliband arrives in Washington for his first State Department meeting with Marco Rubio, it’s pretty clear the UK Foreign Secretary is on the back foot.
After all, the Trump administration has made it clear that Miliband was not the US President’s choice to lead the Foreign Office under Prime Minister Andy Burnham. One person who works for a Trump-adjacent think tank recently told The i Paper that Miliband is a “Nut Zero extremist” who is “known in Washington for all the wrong reasons”.
Those reasons undoubtedly include Miliband calling Donald Trump a “racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper” back in 2016, a claim that Warren Stephens, the US Ambassador to Britain, recently described as “wrong”. (Stephens presumably also thinks that Vice President JD Vance was similarly misinformed when he once called Trump a “cynical asshole”, “reprehensible” and, in a leaked conversation, compared him to Adolf Hitler.)
Miliband later said that Trump had “lowered the bar for idiocy”.
Trump has seemingly forgiven Vance, it is unlikely he has done the same for Miliband, raising tensions ahead of this first meeting, which is ostensibly to discuss Gaza, Iran and Ukraine.
The UK has successfully navigated these treacherous shoals before. David Lammy, the former Foreign Secretary, once called Trump a “tyrant” and a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”. He went on to enjoy what Rubio described as “productive” conversations over a wide range of issues, and even took Vance fly-fishing at Chevening last summer.
In fact, when Miliband walks through the doors at the State Department, it is possible that Rubio should be the one looking shame-faced and on the defensive.
Trump’s war on Iran is badly damaging the British economy, after Iran cut off global oil supplies. Accounting firm EY (formerly Ernst and Young) predicting this week that UK inflation would reach 6.4 per cent by the end of this year, unless the Strait of Hormuz is reopened to normal traffic.
EY also warned of an impending recession in 2027 that would erase any hopes John Healey, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has of growing the UK economy. It predicted that the British economy would shrink by 0.2 per cent in 2027 if the Strait remained closed until the middle of next year.
In normal times, Miliband would go in feeling confident. As it stands, he may need to go in armed with contrition, or at least some kind words for the US President, given Trump is likely to weigh in on social media if he doesn’t like what he sees.
Donald Trump with members of his cabinet, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty)There are important issues at stake.
Rubio will be aware that the US is heavily reliant on Burnham continuing to allow American fighter jets to take off from British bases, as they make bombing raids on Iran. Any suggestion from Miliband that the UK will pull this support would go down like a lead balloon, or indeed a jammed missile.
That all presupposes the Pentagon can lay hands on sufficient weaponry for any prolonged intensification of the conflict. Yesterday, Reuters reported that Trump has used “virtually all” of the long-range precision weapons in his arsenal, and that “failing US missile supplies could limit the US ability to deter adversaries, including Russia and China”.
Miliband arrives at a critical moment for the not-so-special relationship. Before departing London, he said the talks will focus on “ongoing work to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and secure a lasting ceasefire”, calling those steps “essential to ease cost of living pressures on British families”.
Ukraine will also be on the agenda, and Rubio may well seek clarity on Burnham’s apology for the Starmer administration’s handling of Gaza, as well as an explanation of what a new British approach to that crisis might entail.
Some in Trump’s Maga universe undoubtedly see Miliband as a far-left bogeyman, and someone who needs to be put in their place. This may indeed be Trump’s own view. But Rubio is more likely to recognise the Foreign Secretary as a fellow professional with whom he can engage in a serious conversation.
The two men already met one-on-one during last month’s meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in the Philippines. It was during that brief discussion that Rubio urged Miliband to travel to Washington as soon as possible.
In December 2016, as Trump was preparing for his first inauguration, Miliband described the president-elect as “an odd combination of protectionism plus the old trickle-down tax cut formula that has got us into a lot of this mess in the first place”.
Today, those comments have fresh relevance. They may also be a theme Miliband returns in his discussions with Rubio. By attacking Iran, Trump has threatened dire consequences for the UK’s economic future. Miliband would be justified in demanding that the Trump administration urgently cleans up his mess.
A lot could ride on this meeting, but for Miliband it’s past comments, made a decade ago, that could prove decisive. He will have to hope that the notoriously thin-skinned Trump can look beyond these.
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