‘I will not yield’: Starmer dismisses Trump’s trade threat as ‘pressure’
Sir Keir Starmer has dismissed President Donald Trump’s threat to change a trade deal struck between the US and the UK as “pressure”.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey used a question in parliament to say Trump had treated the UK “like a mafia boss running a protection racket” after he threatened to change a trade deal on Tuesday night.
The Prime Minister suggested that Trump’s latest comments added to “pressure” on him to change his stance on the Iran war.
“It is not our war, a lot of pressure has been applied to me to take a different course and that pressure included what happened last night,” Starmer said.
“I’m not going to change my mind. I’m not going to yield, it is not in our national interest to join this war and we will not do so. I know where I stand.”
Trump told Sky News on Tuesday in a phone interview that the special relationship was in a “sad” state.
He added that a trade deal after Liberation Day last year on areas including steel and automotives exports was a “good deal” that “can always be changed”.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman said the special relationship went more deeply than the leadership but Starmer “wouldn’t characterise it in the way the President has”.
In recent weeks, Trump has hit out at Starmer on a number of issues after the UK refused to give the US access to its military bases near the Middle East for launching attacks on Iran, including immigration, Nato and the Chagos deal.
Trump has also been an avid critic of the Labour government’s stance on net zero and blocking new exploration projects in the North Sea.
The US president told Sky News that a trade deal was agreed last year shortly after he announced his sweeping tariffs because “energy is causing problems” in the UK.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s spokesman said US rhetoric around the special relationship was “unhelpful” and wanted the trade deal to “go further”.
Reeves attacks Trump’s ‘folly’
Labour government officials have meanwhile become more outspoken about Trump.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the Trump administration had embarked on a “folly” by launching a war against Iran.
“Obviously no sensible person is a supporter of the Iranian regime but to start a conflict without being clear what the objectives are and not being clear about how you are going to get out of it, I do think that is a folly and it is one that is affecting families here in the UK but also families in the US and around the world,” she told the Daily Mirror.
“I don’t think it was the right decision. But it was absolutely the right decision for Keir Starmer – our Prime Minister – to keep us out of this conflict.”