Lord Mark Sedwill, who served as the cabinet secretary from 2018 to 2020 during Mr Trump’s first term, said that the Prime Minister should use the meeting at the White House to “build a rapport” with the president.
He explained: “Using the 3% announcement on defence this week that the Prime Minister made to get Trump to agree to reinforce the security and defence relationship and to deepen and not damage the economic relationship through tariffs and so on.”.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Lord Sedwill said that the US president “does care about a rapport with foreign leaders, even if he has a disagreement with them”.
Sir Keir Starmer should use his announcement on increasing defence spending to try and deter Donald Trump from implementing tariffs, a former civil service chief has suggested.
The Prime Minister is in Washington for his first meeting with Mr Trump since the inauguration.
