Tuesday afternoon might well rank as one of the riskiest moments of Andy Burnham’s so-far sunlit premiership. He will sit down at the UN headquarters in New York with Donald Trump whose mood in the run-up to testing midterm elections is anything but sunny – and doesn’t relish being at the UN’s portentous lower Manhattan HQ anyway.
On the Burnham side of the balance sheet, as a former aide who accompanied him on previous trips puts it, “it’s always a baptism of fire – the question is how hot does it get?”. The two men have spoken twice but not yet met, and the dynamics of being in the room with the US president can often be unpredictable.
But Burnham has decided since taking office that the risks of being a more proactive figure on the international stage are worthwhile to boost his international authority. While Ed Miliband as Foreign Secretary fronted the argument over deploying sanctions against Israel in protest at settlements driving out West Bank Palestinians, Burnham, who only a few weeks ago was still testing the patience of Foreign Office planners havering about whether to go to the UN at all, has decided that Trump-shaped encounters are now firmly in his purview.
Burnham made clear that he wanted to be in pole position when it comes to dealings with the US – and that has meant allowing Miliband to take centre stage on dealings with the Middle East, though it’s still not clear who really leads on relations with the EU. Burnham is however aware that rivalries can build up and is trying to create his own way of handling balance of power within Cabinet.
An internal argument was also won by Burnham about where the first encounter with Trump should occur. The traditional view is that Washington would be the better backdrop than New York. Also, Burnham is keen to draw a contrast with Keir Starmer’s style and decision-making – while being the beneficiary of the hard yards his predecessor put in to get deals on tech, medicines and the car industry, which took the edge off swingeing tariffs.
So the decision to take the first available opportunity for a personal encounter was very much his decision. Affability is a useful calling card. Burnham might send tough signals leftwards on being prepared to stand up to Trump, but the playbook he is relying on is also about greater ease with spontaneity than the leader he replaced.
Therefore, the PM has a golden opportunity to leave New York with some form of new understanding with Washington while being able to signal to his party and progressive opinion that he did not bend the knee. In some ways, he is a lucky general on timing. Trump did not respond as feared to the UK sanctions on Israel, because Trump is himself frustrated by Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to make good on a plan to dent the Iranian leadership in the conflict unleashed with Tehran.
Trump has also just ended a stand-off with Denmark over entitlement to Greenland’s territory and mineral reserves. This was always a shake-down to get a better security presence paid for by Europeans in the high north, but was also a diplomatic curveball for Nato allies who did not want to leave Denmark in the lurch.
The key to this calmer mood in transatlantic relations is Ukraine and the Russia threat, a hardy perennial of UK-US relations since full scale war against Ukraine broke out in 2022.
Most importantly, a tactical bromance between Trump and Vladimir Putin has curdled into a tetchy stand-off, as Washington realises that the Russian president has no real interest in a deal to end the war in Ukraine – and may indeed be set to ramp up hostilities both there and against Nato in various forms of “grey-zone” conflict.
Now Trump has just approved a major slew of extra sanctions on Russia, supporting a bill in Congress he initially resisted, which targets officials and key sectors of the Russian economy, including a fleet of shadow tankers which export oil in defiance of sanctions.
Crucially, it also allows for tariffs on the big importers of Russian oil or natural gas – China and India. In blunt terms, it gives Burnham something to agree with Trump about, which does not look like a bow and scrape and is useful to British interests.
There is however a gremlin topic Burnham will be keen to skirt, namely a recent visit by Canada’s Mark Carney, currently enjoying the status of liberal icon for his sparky resistance to Trump’s trade threats. Carney has become a bête noire to Trump – not least after the new Canadian premier symbolically delayed telephoning the President until the White House reached out to him. One question from Trump Burnham will want to avoid is why he is on cosy terms with a fellow centre-left leader.
Discussing these turns of events last week with Anthony Scaramucci, the former Trump ally and White House communications director turned star podcaster, he said something which struck me as useful aide memoire as Burnham runs through his final paces. Scaramucci, recounting his dramatic exit after just 11 days from the White House in 2017 following forthright advice to the President about what he could or could not do constitutionally, received a scolding from Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who chided him: “You can’t tell Donald that you know something that he doesn’t know.”
One diplomat who planned leaders’ visits previously added that it is wise to use the phrase, “’As you well know Mr President,’ very liberally”. Burnham’s opportunity is that focussing on common ground against Russia underlines the strength of the US-UK relationship, rather than the holes that have opened in it. Because there are sinkholes aplenty – from the handling of Iran, to stand-offs on AI regulation to the the UK’s record on immigration and desire to get closer to the EU. Best not to go there. The art of the deal of meeting Trump these days is what you don’t say.
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