Keir Starmer is ditching Zelensky to avoid Trump tariffs and land a trade deal

The Brits have finally discovered realism

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s visit to Washington majored on an historic invitation for President Trump to make a second state visit to Britain. Despite considerable pre-visit hype among the UK mainstream media, Ukraine was barely mentioned. The cold truth is, Starmer is quietly ditching Zelensky to avoid tariffs.

The subtle art of diplomacy is often hard to fathom for the outsider. When Keir Starmer called on Donald Trump in the Oval Office on 27 February, there was an air of conviviality that belied what some considered to have been, hitherto, a difficult relationship. The set piece moment was the Prime Minster handing the President a letter from His Majesty, King Charles III.

While it has attracted little comment, The King’s letter to President Trump was a diplomatic masterstroke. A section of the first page was captured by a photographer. These were words crafted by His Majesty himself, with his distinct syntax, rather than written by an anonymous committee of officials in 10 Down Street. The preambular second paragraph appears to contain mere niceties about a possible Trump visit to Scotland, but it was so much more.

Donald Trump’s mother was born in Scotland, and the President famously owns golf courses there. The King extends a deeply personal invitation for the President to stay at Balmoral, the favoured Residence in Scotland of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and the place she passed. There is also an offer to visit and stay at Dumfries House, which was His Majesty’s seat in Scotland before ascending to the throne, when his Royal title in Scotland was the Duke of Rothesay. He mentions that underprivileged young people are trained at the House and many end up working at the President’s golfing establishments.

Scotland holds a special place in the hearts of both Heads of State. And Diplomacy, ultimately, is about human connection. This was King Charles addressing President Trump as an equal, a peer and a cherished friend. And then the coup de grace, an invitation to an historic second State visit, historic because no US President has been afforded two State visits.

President Trump appears to value the form of diplomacy at least as much as its substance. The style and class of King Charles’ letter sits in stark contrast, to the truculent, unshaven President Zelensky arguing in the Oval Office on 28 February.

And the theatre behind Keir Starmer’s handing the letter to President Trump was designed to reinforce two perceptions. The first was that The King continues to regard the United States as a dear and trusted friend. The second, and perhaps more significantly, that Prime Minister Starmer was the messenger, not the peer.

Some British journalists jokingly referred to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s meeting in the Oval Office on Thursday 27 February as a visit to the King. Clearly, President Trump isn’t a monarch, nor is he Elvis Presley. But in the game of diplomacy between the United States and the United Kingdom, His Majesty King Charles II and President Trump are peers as Heads of State, and Prime Minister Starmer is a more junior Head of Government. While the first sentence of the letter is not fully visible, His Majesty is clearly thanking President Trump for receiving the British Prime Minister – i.e. His Head of Government - so soon after the inauguration.

I don’t believe the optics of this would have been lost on the President. The Labour Prime Minister’s has had a bad start with the Donald Trump. The King’s letter brings the adults back into the conversation in a way that can only help the UK repair some of the damage caused.

In inviting President Trump to Britain, with all the pomp and ceremony that Britain offers like no other country, the UK government wants to reprioritise its trade and investment relationship with the United States. As Europe and America teeter on the brink of a trade war, Britain wants a genuinely open trading relationship with America that both prevents the risk of US tariffs but also gives the UK economy a much-needed boost post-Brexit.

America is Britain’s largest export partner accounting for 15.7% of business and trade in goods is fairly balanced, with a tiny surplus of £2.5bn going Britain’s way in 2023. This may help to explain why Britain appears less in the firing line for US tariffs than the European Union, which President Trump said was designed to ‘screw the US’ flooding America with a surplus of $300bn in goods trade.

After President Obama famously said that Britain would have to join the back of the queue in any post-Brexit trade talks with America, UK-US trade talks were not prioritised under the Biden administration. This has now become a top priority for the UK in its relationship with the Trump administration. And Starmer has recognised that he can’t have it all – he can’t criticise Trump on Ukraine, backing Zelensky and steering Europe on a pro-war course, while at the same time landing a lucrative trade deal and avoiding Trump tariffs.

He has therefore decided quietly to ditch Zelensky and to line up behind Trump’s plans for a peace deal.

After Zelensky’s catastrophic Oval Office meeting on 28 February, 10 Downing Street issued a statement saying the Prime Minister had spoken to both US and Ukrainian Presidents. But while it expressed Britain’s ‘unwavering support for Ukraine’, it did not go so far as to side with President Zelensky over the dispute. Having travelled to Washington seeking to avoid causing offence to the President, the stakes are too high for Starmer now to leap onto the bandwagon of unquestioning Zelensky support.

Indeed, Starmer is now positioning himself as the bridge between Europe and the US, and has indicated that, with President Macron, he will develop ideas for peace in Ukraine to put to President Trump. This represents a significant shift in UK position, recognising US leadership in landing a peace deal, rather than corralling the European wagons against a change in policy. His Lancaster House Summit of EU Leaders on 2 March, which Zelensky attended, was a long-overdue sign of the UK providing some thought leadership on Ukraine policy.

At the very least, it suggests the UK recognises the greater benefit of delivering strengthened trading relationship with America, rather than clinging on to a losing war in Ukraine. The Brits finally appear to be getting realistic.