Only grant Trump a UK state visit if he agrees to Ukraine summit, say Lib Dems
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Ed Davey says incoming US president is ‘threat to peace and prosperity’ and relations with him must be transactional. Britain should offer Donald Trump a state visit on the condition he agrees to a sit-down summit with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as part of an openly “transactional” US-UK relationship with the returning president, Ed Davey has said.
In a speech in which the Liberal Democrat leader also called for the UK to seek a new customs union with the EU to help insulate itself from the potential impacts of Trump’s second presidency, Davey said that while the US leader could not be trusted, he could also very much not be ignored.
“The reality is, unfortunately, very clear: the incoming Trump administration is a threat to peace and prosperity for the UK, across Europe and around the world,” Davey told the event in London. “For the next four years, the UK cannot depend on the presence of the United States to be a reliable partner on security, defence or the economy.”.
The only way for the UK to deal with Trump, he said, would be from a position of strength, requiring closer links to Europe and, when interacting with the president, to do so “with our eyes wider to the kind of man he is”. “He’s transactional, so let’s treat him that way,” he said. “The good news is we have leverage. We have something Trump desperately wants – a state visit, the pageantry of Buckingham Palace, a banquet with the king. We all know he craves it. So I say we give it to him, but only if he delivers what we need first for Britain and Europe’s defence and security.”.
