Sir Keir Starmer will visit Washington within weeks, Foreign Secretary David Lammy indicated.
Sir Keir Starmer is set to travel to Donald Trump’s White House within weeks after the US president took office promising a new “golden age of America”.
Mr Trump is weighing up whether to approve the appointment of Lord Mandelson as the UK’s new ambassador in Washington, the fate of the Chagos Islands deal and the extent to which tariffs will hit Britain.
In his inauguration address, he promised to “tariff and tax foreign countries” – although gave no details of how he would implement his policy.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy congratulated Mr Trump on his return to the White House, saying “there are no greater allies than the UK and US”.
“Our close economic, security, intelligence and cultural ties deliver growth and prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic,” he said.
“I look forward to further strengthening the special relationship over the years to come.”
Mr Lammy is one of a series of high-profile Labour figures who have expressed trenchant opinions about Mr Trump in the past, calling him a “racist and KKK/neo-Nazi sympathiser”.
Relations between the Trump camp and Sir Keir’s party descended into a legal row after Labour volunteers campaigned for Kamala Harris during her election defeat.
But Mr Lammy has sought to build bridges with the president’s allies and the Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister met Mr Trump in New York in September.
The US president is known to admire the royal family, and the King sent Mr Trump a personal message of congratulations on his inauguration.
One potential issue for the special relationship is Mr Trump’s desire to use economic tariffs to protect American businesses.
Imposing tariffs on the UK would make British exports to the US more expensive for consumers.
Outlining his plans, Mr Trump said: “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.
“For this purpose, we are establishing the external revenue service to collect all tariffs, duties and revenues, it will be massive amounts of money pouring into our Treasury coming from foreign sources.”
Prime ministers have historically not attended the inauguration of a new president, but have sought to be early visitors to the White House.
Mr Lammy said: “I think that when you look at past prime ministers, it’s taken between a week or up to a month to come to Washington. The importance is the strength of the relationship and the serious discussions that we have.
“In the end, we have war in Europe, we have a ceasefire in the Middle East, but it’s incredibly fragile, and there are important malign actors like Iran that we’ve got to discuss with the United States and, of course, our growing trade relations with the United States.
“So, lots to discuss, and I’m very confident that Keir Starmer will be discussing this with Donald Trump within the next few weeks.”
