Bin the lectures, bring gossip and be ready to banter: how the new PM should prepare for his Trump encounter
Donald Trump and Theresa May at the White House in 2017 (Alamy/MediaPunch Inc)
4 min read
Back in January 2017, I accompanied Theresa May to the White House to meet Donald Trump. She was the first foreign leader through the door after his surprise election victory.
It was just seven days after Trump took office and Washington was still reeling from Trump’s “American carnage” inauguration address, a tirade against America’s elite famously described as “some weird shit” by George W Bush.
May was a conscientious reader of her briefing folders. But nothing in the collected thoughts of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had prepared her for the conversation she was about to have. In the opening tête-à-tête, Trump told her that her first step should be “to sue the European Union” as an opening gambit in the Brexit negotiation. In the subsequent plenary, Trump ignored the pre-cooked agenda and busked about what was on his mind: a phone call from the prime minister of Pakistan, the “crazy” cost of the next generation of US nuclear submarines, the unfairness of America’s trade deals. At one point, he sharply reprimanded his national security adviser, Mike Flynn, over the latter’s admittedly bizarre decision to withhold from Trump the fact that Vladimir Putin had been trying to call. Flynn was fired two weeks later.
Andy Burnham will shortly go face-to-face with Trump. They will meet in New York this month at the UN General Assembly. No 10 reportedly has ambitions for a Burnham visit to Washington before the year’s end. And the Prime Minister will attend the Trump-hosted G20 in Miami in mid-December. How should he approach this Trump-laden autumn?
First, he shouldn’t worry about the ideological chasm. Some of those around Trump are indeed hard-line ideologues. But for Trump, personal chemistry matters. He has a short attention span and hates being lectured. He finds the day-to-day workload – the briefings, the meetings, the almost entirely unread paperwork – excruciatingly tiresome. When he meets foreign leaders, he wants a conversation he enjoys: some banter, some gossip, some interesting anecdotes.
For Trump, personal chemistry matters. He has a short attention span and hates being lectured
Second, Burnham should expect the pre-determined agenda to dissolve in front of his eyes. My guess is that Trump will want to talk about “the state of Britain” – which really means whether Burnham has plans to restore Britain to the utopia that Trump’s Scottish mother would describe to him. In particular, Trump is likely to ask where Burnham stands on North Sea energy; if, as is rumoured, the government has by then approved development of the Jackdaw North Sea gas field, the conversation will start well. Trump may then ask about Burnham’s plans on immigration: how will he end the “small boats invasion”, root out extremism, and stop the supposed spread of Sharia law? And Trump will press on defence spending. If reports are right that the Chancellor is backing away from the commitment that defence spending will reach three per cent of GDP by 2030 (though the PM has pushed back on this claim), Trump will be unimpressed. As for Burnham’s priorities, they should include Iran, Ukraine and tariffs. Iran is looking like a presidency-defining mistake for Trump.
Burnham may have to weather recriminations about lack of UK support but he should try to get Trump to talk about his exit strategy. On Ukraine, his message should be that the Ukrainians are doing better and Putin is under increasing pressure, so this is the moment to step up western support for Ukraine – not lose our nerve. And on tariffs, the daily threats from Washington of new tariff wars – today Canada, tomorrow China – are damaging everyone’s economy, including America’s. Can Burnham persuade Trump “enough, already”?
These first Trump/Burnham meetings should go well. After Trump’s recent clashes with Giorgia Meloni and Mark Carney, it will suit him to be seen to be bonding rather than clashing with an ally. But sooner or later, Trump will say something with which Burnham must disagree. With May, it was Trump’s November 2017 reposting of anti-Muslim videos by far-right Britain First. With Starmer, it was Trump’s disparaging comments about Britain’s contribution in Afghanistan. Something will happen. But the immediate priority is a good first encounter. As Irving Berlin wrote: “There may be trouble ahead/ but while there’s music and moonlight and love and romance/ let’s face the music and dance”.
Lord Darroch is a Crossbench peer, UK ambassador to Washington 2016-2019 and former national security adviser
