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.”.
Sir Keir wants to act as a bridge between the US and European continental allies, and said he had been having “really intense discussions with our European partners, with Nato, with Ukraine, and obviously with US teams as well”.
Sir Keir Starmer will on Thursday push Donald Trump to provide a US “backstop” to deter Vladimir Putin from “coming again” in Ukraine after any peace deal.
Ahead of his talks at the White House on Thursday, Sir Keir said Trump can be trusted and understands that Putin started the war in Ukraine.
Asked if he was confident the UK will be exempted from tariffs, Sir Keir said “I’m not going to get ahead of our discussions”, but he stressed that British trade with the US was “pretty balanced”.
