Sir Keir Starmer has arrived in Washington for crunch talks with US President Donald Trump. The PM will use Thursday’s meeting to push Trump to guarantee a US backstop for Ukraine to deter Vladimir Putin from further aggression. Setting out his call for US commitments to Ukraine after a peace deal, Sir Keir said: “The reason I say the backstop is so important is that the security guarantee has to be sufficient to deter Putin from coming again.”.
While Sir Keir was flying to Washington, the US president said: “I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much. We’re going to have Europe do that, because we’re talking about Europe as the next-door neighbour.”. The Prime Minister will hope the promise to increase defence spending to a 2.5% share of the economy from April 2027 helps persuade Trump that European nations are serious about the security of their continent.
On Friday, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky will meet Trump in Washington where they are expected to announce an agreement on Ukraine’s minerals. Mr Zelensky and European leaders will then meet in the UK for talks hosted by Sir Keir on Sunday.
