Trump is tearing up the transatlantic alliance. Can Starmer’s US visit change the weather?

As the US president turns on allies and embraces Russia, can the UK prime minister persuade Trump to listen to Europe’s concerns. In November 1940, Winston Churchill wrote a telegram to Franklin Roosevelt expressing relief both at the US president’s re-election and the victory of his anti-appeasement policy. “Things are afoot which will be remembered as long as the English language is spoken in any quarter of the globe, and in expressing the comfort I feel that the people of the United States have once again cast these great burdens upon you, I must now avow my sure faith that the lights by which we steer will bring us safely to anchor,” he wrote.

As Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron prepare to meet a very different US president, things are once again afoot that will live long in the memory – but this time the lights seem to be going out on a ship adrift in a sea of chaos. In his Arsenal of Democracy speech, Roosevelt spurned those who asked to “throw the US weight on the scale in favour of a dictated peace”. He also saw past Nazi Germany’s “parade of pious purpose” to observe “in the background the concentration camps and ‘servants of God’ in chains”.

Donald Trump, by contrast, glories in the prospect of a US-dictated peace and in Russia he sees no gulags. Starmer’s nightmare is that the transatlantic alliance forged in the second world war is crumbling before his eyes. The inconceivable has become not just possible, but probable, or as Macron put it on Wednesday: “Do not think that the unthinkable cannot happen, including the worst.”.

If the central tenets of the postwar order are disintegrating, one of the casualties is likely to be Britain’s self-appointed role as the US’s bridge to Europe. There is a macabre circularity that France and the UK feel it necessary to plead with Trump to recall America’s history as the generous country that kept the flame of freedom alive in Europe.

Margaret MacMillan, a professor of international history at Oxford, fears that Trump will not listen to their case. “Never underestimate the importance of individuals in history, especially if they wield a great deal of power, and Donald Trump has got his hands on the levers of the most powerful country in the world. He is not controllable by anyone … He does not have a clear set of policies, but a set of likes and dislikes. Decisions are based on emotion and whim and last moment ideas,” she said.

“Even great powers need allies – and yet he is turning on his allies.”. Europe was braced psychologically for Trump to refuse further military aid to Ukraine on the basis the US had dispensed enough, and the killing had become a senseless stalemate. But it was never foreseen that in turning off the tap he would parrot Russian propaganda, baselessly accusing Ukraine’s leadership of starting the war with Russia, and falsely describing Volodymr Zelenskyy as a “dictator”.

Such language risks in effect Trump’s America swapping sides in the war. How does Europe react?. The necessary first response, out of self-respect, was to reject the US president’s framing of the war, as did the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, when he described Trump’s words as “an unprecedented distortion of reality and extremely dangerous”.

The second step has been to appeal to those with sense in the US that their leader is taking them down a disastrous path. But Trump long ago cleansed the current Republican party of politicians that challenged his rule. Republicans have discovered challenging Trump was not a profitable career path.

Trump’s chief consideration in assembling his foreign policy team has been loyalty, not talent. It leaves foreign diplomats with few pressure points to exploit. H R McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser during his first term, insisted there are still ways to talk Trump around. “He is reflexively contrarian – if you go to him and say everybody agrees on this Mr President, he will do the opposite just to spite you. The technique I would use is to say: ‘This is what Vladimir Putin wants you to say, and this is why he wants you to say it.’ I would show to him what is happening in Russian markets and say: ‘You have just given this psychological gift to the Russians who are celebrating.’.

“The Europeans need to come out with a clear message: ‘Whatever you do, do not give Putin what he wants upfront.’ What does he want upfront? Sanctions relief. Keep him backed into the damned corner.”. Kim Darroch, the former UK ambassador to Washington, suggested Macron and Starmer force Trump to focus on the details, such as how he intends to apply pressure on Putin – something that is absent from his current discourse.

Alexander Stubb, the Finnish president, suggested Trump simply does not understand what might be at stake for the US. He said: “We have to convince the US that Ukraine’s future is a decisive question not only for Ukraine, but also for European security, the international system and the US’s status as a great power. Our duty is to make clear what the consequences would be if Putin gets what he wants.”.