Starmer says Trump wished him well at Nato summit
Starmer said Trump wished him well in Turkey and that they will stay in touch after No 10, as NATO spending and Ukraine overshadowed the summit.
Sir Keir Starmer said Donald Trump wished him well at the Nato leaders’ meeting in Turkey and that the two men would stay in touch after he leaves No 10. “Yes he did, and we’re going to stay in touch,” Starmer said, putting a personal line under a summit dominated by questions over defence spending, Ukraine and the future of the alliance.
Starmer said he and Trump “always got on” and argued that a working relationship with the US president matters for UK national security and diplomacy. The pair first met over a two-hour dinner at Trump Tower in New York in September 2024, before Trump returned to the White House after winning the 2024 US election. Their relationship has also been tested. Trump mocked Starmer as “no Winston Churchill” during a row over the UK refusing to allow the use of British bases for initial US-Israel strikes on Iran, and he repeated criticism of the UK’s response to the conflict on Wednesday.
At the summit in Ankara, Starmer said Trump did not raise UK defence spending directly with him, despite the broader pressure on allies to spend more. Nato’s latest target is 3.5% of GDP on core defence by 2026, plus an additional 1.5% on broader defence-related items by 2035. Nato secretary general Mark Rutte has pressed members for “clear, concrete and credible” plans, as leaders face scrutiny over how quickly they can move from pledges to budgets.
Starmer said the meeting showed “great unity”, even as Trump renewed complaints about Nato, Greenland and the possibility of pulling US troops out of Europe. The backdrop also included the war in Ukraine, which has kept defence spending at the centre of alliance politics. Trump has complained that allies are still not doing enough, and his criticism has sharpened the pressure on European capitals to show they can carry more of the burden.
The summit was also marked by an unusual gift from Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who gave leaders personalised firearms. British officials are expected to decommission Starmer’s so it will be inoperable. Starmer, who announced his resignation as Labour leader last month and is expected to leave Downing Street soon, is now signaling that the Trump channel will remain open after his premiership ends.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
