President Donald Trump hosted British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House Thursday to address the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and bilateral trade ties, amid the U.S. leader’s tariff threats on Europe and demands that the continent rely less on Washington for its security.
Ahead of their meeting, Trump was noncommittal on providing any security guarantees for Kyiv, including on a proposed U.S. “backstop” to support European peacekeepers to enforce a potential truce between Ukraine and Russia — a condition Starmer required.
“I hope we have that problem where we could worry about peacekeeping. We got to get there first,” Trump told reporters at the White House Wednesday. “Peacekeeping is very easy. It’s making the deal that’s very tough.”
Differences remain among European allies on any future deployment of troops to Ukraine. The U.K. supports a French-led proposal while other nations including Poland have ruled it out.
“I’m absolutely convinced that we need a lasting peace, not a ceasefire, and for that to happen, we need security guarantees,” Starmer said Wednesday, adding that Britain will do its part to support the measure as part of a Ukraine peace deal but only with a U.S. backstop.
Russian President Vladimir Putin rejects any suggestions of a peacekeeping troop deployment to Ukraine. He said Thursday that “Western elites” are trying to disrupt the newly established dialogue between Moscow and Washington.
In recent weeks Trump has launched direct negotiations with Russia to swiftly end the war without the involvement of Kyiv or European allies, both of whom he has increasingly criticized. He has drastically reversed U.S. policies under his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, whose administration’s stance on the war was to “support Ukraine for as long as it takes,” and “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,” when it comes to peace negotiations.
Pushed to clarify Trump’s position on sending peacekeepers, a senior administration official speaking on background to reporters Thursday said that there are “concerns” about putting troops on the ground at a “post-Minsk I level of conflict, even post-Minsk II.”
The official was referring to the 2014 and 2015 agreement aimed at ending fighting between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, neither of which were sustained.
The official said there would be less concern to send troops if the conflict is “dialed down to a functional ceasefire,” as the U.S. wants, and even less with “a broad based, consensual peace settlement among the parties.”
The type of force deployed will depend on the political settlement to end the war, the official said — a “tradeoff” that Trump and Starmer will focus on.
A key message for Starmer to reinforce is that Europeans must be part of any peace discussions, said Gesine Weber, a fellow on the German Marshall Fund’s (GMF) Geostrategy team.
“Because it would be very odd to have a situation where you have the burden shift to Europeans, but not the strategic responsibility and the strategic reflections,” she told VOA.
Boosting defense
Trump, who wants NATO members to boost defense spending to 5% of their gross domestic product, also reiterated his stance that Europe should “step up,” insisting that American taxpayers “shouldn’t be footing the bill … more than the Europeans are paying.”
In 2023, the U.S. spent 3.4% of its GDP on defense, according to U.S. government data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
In what appears to be a move to appease Trump, on Tuesday, Starmer announced an unexpected increase in the U.K. defense budget to 2.5% of the nation’s GDP by 2027, then to 2.6% the following year.
The increase will be funded by cutting Britain’s already depleted foreign aid budget to just 0.3% of the country’s GDP. Starmer aims to further boost defense spending to 3% in the next Parliament, which will begin in 2029 at the latest after the next general election.
The prime minister acknowledged that the decision to ramp up defense spending was “accelerated” as Trump moves to negotiate with Moscow and makes clear he is reducing U.S. support for Europe’s security.
The visit is a challenge for Starmer as he seeks to balance the U.K.’s interests with those of its European allies while engaging with an unpredictable U.S. administration.
“The most important thing is, do these guys get along? Do they have a common vision?” said Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution about Trump and Starmer. That, he told VOA, could signal the emergence of a Western strategy to end the war with NATO’s support.
“If that’s the case, then we’re in a good position to try to promote a negotiation between Russia and Ukraine,” O’Hanlon added.
On Wednesday Trump signaled Ukraine should “forget about” a path toward NATO membership and that it should not expect much from Washington.
“I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much — we’re going to have Europe do that because we’re talking about Europe is their next-door neighbor,” he said.
Aside from negotiating with Moscow, Trump is also pushing Kyiv for a deal that would allow American access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals and recoup funds given by the Biden administration to support the country’s war efforts.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to meet Trump at the White House on Friday.
Tariff threats
Starmer is keen to secure favorable terms amid potential U.S. tariffs that could impact British exports as the U.S. hits European countries with 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum. Trump is threatening more, saying the European Union has been “very unfair” to America.
Starmer is “in a bit delicate position” as the U.K. is not part of the European Union single market, said GMF’s Weber.
“So, for him, the question is basically averting the situation where there are U.S. tariffs, and of course also trying to appease Washington in that regard, while he’s also not going on a super confrontational line with the European Union,” she said.
British finance minister Rachel Reeves said on Wednesday she was confident that U.S.-U.K. trade and investment would not be derailed amid Trump’s tariff threats.
