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Now it’s Keir Starmer’s turn.
After President Emmanuel Macron of France navigated his meeting with President Trump on Monday, skirting the rockiest shoals but making little headway, Mr. Starmer, the British prime minister, will meet Mr. Trump on Thursday to plead for the United States not to abandon Ukraine.
Mr. Starmer will face the same balancing act as Mr. Macron did, without the benefit of years of interactions dating to 2017, when Mr. Trump greeted the newly elected French president with a white-knuckle handshake that was the first of several memorable grip-and-grin moments.
Unlike Mr. Macron, Mr. Starmer will arrive in the Oval Office armed with a pledge to increase his country’s military spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2027, and to 3 percent within a decade. That addresses one of Mr. Trump’s core grievances: his contention that Europeans are free riders, sheltering under an American security umbrella.
To finance the rearming, Mr. Starmer will pare back Britain’s overseas development aid, a move that echoes, on a more modest scale, Mr. Trump’s dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development. Mr. Starmer’s motive is budgetary not ideological — he says the cuts are regrettable — but Mr. Trump might approve.
British officials said Mr. Starmer would combine his confidence-building gestures on defense with a strong show of support for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and a warning not to rush into a peace deal with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that fails to establish security guarantees for Ukraine.
“The key thing is, we don’t want to repeat the previous mistakes in dealing with Putin, in going for a truce or cease-fire that doesn’t convert into a durable peace,” said Peter Mandelson, who became Britain’s ambassador to Washington three weeks ago and has helped arrange the visit.
Mr. Mandelson said Mr. Starmer had a different style from Mr. Macron, who called Mr. Trump “Dear Donald” and tapped him on the knee, even as he corrected him on his claim that Ukraine would pay back Europe’s aid. But Mr. Mandelson said his boss’s less demonstrative approach would also be effective.
“The prime minister has his own personal relationship with President Trump that’s been established over a series of phone calls and meetings,” Mr. Mandelson said in an interview. “Keir Starmer is a plainly spoken, straightforward guy who is perfectly capable of speaking truth unto power, and doing so respectfully, in a way that will enable the president to see what he and the U.S. gets out of any situation.”
Mr. Mandelson took note of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s words of praise after Mr. Starmer announced the increased military spending. Mr. Hegseth called it a “strong step from an enduring partner.”
Whether that will make Mr. Trump any more favorably disposed toward Mr. Starmer’s arguments on Ukraine and Russia is another matter, though the president will also be basking in another piece of news: that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has yielded to American pressure and agreed to a deal turning over revenue from some mineral resources.
Mr. Trump told reporters that Mr. Zelensky was pressing for his own Oval Office meeting on Friday, at which he and the president could sign the deal. If that meeting is confirmed, it would make Mr. Starmer the interlude between two high-profile encounters — with Mr. Macron and Mr. Zelensky.
But Mr. Starmer’s hastily assembled commitment on defense could give him credibility with Mr. Trump, unmatched by other European leaders, because it is a reminder that his Labour Party won a landslide majority in Parliament last July.
Analysts said it was hard to imagine France or Germany moving as quickly, given the political uncertainty in both countries. Mr. Macron’s control over France’s Parliament has eroded since elections last summer. Friedrich Merz, the chancellor-designate in Germany, is cobbling together a coalition after his victory last Sunday.
“Now the focus will rightly turn to France and Germany to see if they can also step up to the plate,” said Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director general of the Royal United Services Institute, a research group in London. “Europeans are going to have to take the lead responsibility for their own defense very soon.”
Mr. Starmer has also drawn a line between himself and Mr. Merz on the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance. Speaking after his victory, Mr. Merz said the Trump administration “does not care much about the fate of Europe.” He said his priority would be to build an “independent European defense capability.”
Mr. Starmer, by contrast, reaffirmed Britain’s ties with the United States. “We must reject any false choice between our allies, between one side of the Atlantic or the other,” he said in Parliament on Tuesday, adding, “It is a special relationship. It is a strong relationship. I want it to go from strength to strength.”
British officials said the prime minister also hoped to announce cooperation on advanced technology, including artificial intelligence, with Mr. Trump. They said his focus would be on the future, not on re-litigating issues like the president’s labeling of Mr. Zelensky as a dictator or his assertion that Ukraine started the war with Russia.
“It’s not Starmer’s style to have exchanges on words or semantics,” Mr. Mandelson said. “He just wants to get stuff done — to make sure that as each other’s closest allies, we know what the other side is going to do.”
