It is the eternal question for UK policymakers: America or Europe? For the past nine months, Keir Starmer has sought to follow his 17 post-war predecessors in maintaining an uneasy balancing act between the two. But the Prime Minister’s tricky task has been made even more difficult by Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The President is a lifelong Eurosceptic, declaring in February that ‘the European Union was formed in order to screw the United States’. In his second term Trump is demonstrating even more hostility towards the EU than before. His administration has shown little interest in maintaining close Atlantic ties, citing grievances on trade and defence expenditure.
That leaves Labour with a choice. Does it go all in on a UK-US trade deal? Or does it seek to pursue its post-Brexit reset, and potentially put that at risk? Starmer, optimistically, hopes to do both. A finalised deal with the US on tariffs is expected within the next three weeks.
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