‘Tea with a side of flattery’ – a British Starmer in King “Donald” court

Photo: ‘The Washington Post’

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer deployed a mixture of flattery, deference and even a royal invitation to London as he worked to keep President Donald Trump from turning on Ukraine and Europe ahead of peace talks with Russia, becoming the latest international leader to play supplicant in the Oval Office as Trump threatens to upend the global order, writes ‘The Washington Post’.

Starmer’s was the most recent in a rapid-fire stretch of visits from U.S. allies as they reel from Trump’s embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin amid efforts to end the war in Ukraine. After Trump blamed the smaller country last week for the Kremlin’s unprovoked 2022 invasion, then aligned with Russia and North Korea against Kyiv in the United Nations, foreign leaders have decided that face-to-face meetings with the U.S. president are the best way to bend his policy.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday offered his silver tongue to “Cher Donald” — French for “Dear Donald.” But no other leader than Starmer could slip a cream-colored letter from King Charles III out of his jacket and present it to Trump, a longtime fan of the British royal family.

His Majesty The King wanted to know, Starmer said: “I’ve got to tell him what your reaction is.”

Trump spent a silent 16 seconds reading the letter, which had the king’s regal red crest emblazoned at the top.

“Oh, that’s nice. Well, that is really nice,” Trump said, flipping to the second page of the missive to check that Charles had taken royal pen to royal paper to make it official. “That’s quite a signature. Isn’t that beautiful?”

Amid the buttering up of Trump, Starmer emphasized the shared view across Europe that any peace deal with Russia needs to be “enduring,” their shorthand for their lack of trust in Putin and belief that peace needs to be secured with hard power: foreign troops on the ground in Ukraine, backed up by U.S. might from abroad.

British and French leaders have been mulling a European deployment of troops to Ukraine to back any deal, and Starmer declared Thursday his readiness to deploy British “boots on the ground” to keep the peace there.

Starmer and Macron fear that European deployments will not be credible if the Trump administration holds back from endorsing and supporting them. At a minimum, European officials hope to be helped with Washington’s heavy airlift capabilities, its air-defense systems and long-range missiles — none of which would need to be stationed in Ukraine.

The president was less clear whether he was willing to offer a U.S. backstop to European troops in Ukraine.

“I don’t know when you say backstop, you mean a backstop psychologically, or militarily or what, but we are a backstop because we’ll be over there. We’ll be working in the country” extracting natural resources as part of the minerals deal, Trump told a reporter.

Starmer’s visit came after French President Emmanuel Macron was in Washington earlier this week to make a similar case to Trump. The British leader leaned into the idea that Trump was the glue to maintaining the peace in Ukraine should the three-year war end, AP notes.

The press by Starmer and Macron this week reflects the mounting concern felt by much of Europe that Trump’s aggressive push to find an end to the war signals his willingness to concede too much to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump’s rapprochement with Russia has nonetheless unsettled America’s historic allies in Europe. They have found themselves on their heels with Trump returning to the White House with a determination to dramatically make over U.S. foreign policy to correspond with his “America First” world view.

The Trump administration held talks last week with Russia without Ukrainian or other European allies represented. And this week, the U.S. refused to sign on to resolutions at the United Nations blaming Russia for the war. The drifting White House view of Ukraine under Trump is leading to a tectonic shift in transatlantic relations.

White House officials are skeptical that Britain and France can assemble enough troops from across Europe, at least at this moment, to deploy a credible peacekeeping mission to Kyiv.

‘Tea with a side of flattery’ – what US papers say about Starmer’s meeting with Trump, quotes ‘The Guardian’ with a touch of bitter.

The New York Times

The encounter did not make the print front page and by Friday morning GMT it had vanished from the front of the website. A search for the newspaper’s coverage uncovered a brief article focused on Trump’s comments on Vladimir Putin and Ukraine.

Fox News

Trump’s news channel of choice indirectly features the meeting on its online front page under the headline: “Trump draws laughs with answer to question about calling Zelenskyy a dictator”. The article focused on a comment the US president made in the Oval Office when asked about the controversial slur, replying: “I can’t believe I said that.”

USA Today

The meeting between the two leaders did not make the front page of the print edition, although Trump and his tariff moves did. Online, the newspaper covered the gathering on its front under the headline: “Tea with a side of flattery: UK prime minister Keir Starmer visits Trump”.

“UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer arrived at the White House on Thursday bearing a special envelope for President Donald Trump − a letter from the British King Charles III inviting him to a second state visit,” the newspaper reported.

Washington Post

The summit of the two leaders did appear on the front page of the Washington Post’s print edition – as a picture-caption story under the headline: “Delicate diplomatic outreach on Ukraine”. “In Washington, Starmer deployed a mixture of flattery, deference and even a royal invitation for a state visit,” it read.

While online, the coverage had dropped down the site to the “War in Ukraine” section under the headline “British prime minister uses flattery, royal invitation to push Trump on Ukraine”.

Wall Street Journal

In the print edition, the WSJ covered the meeting albeit indirectly under the headline “Trump softens his tone on Kyiv but won’t give security pledge”, with the story focusing on Trump’s position on Ukraine expressed during Starmer’s visit.

CNN

Starmer does not feature on the CNN online front but the meeting does appear in a couple of articles, one focusing on Trump’s response to questions about his branding of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as a dictator, while the other on the royal invitation received by Trump to visit the UK for a second state visit.

…A the scant coverage, concludes ‘The Guardian’…

read more in our Telegram-channel https://t.me/The_International_Affairs