Nikki Haley, former GOP presidential candidate and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations appointed by then-President Donald Trump, had former British Prime Minister David Cameron on her SiriusXM podcast this week.
While Cameron said that the bond between the U.S. and the U.K. “runs deep” he also noted two global concerns where the two countries diverged when Trump was in the White House.
Cameron — who was PM from 2010-2016, during the Obama Administration — said the special relationship between the two countries is “based on our shared history and values and language, and all the things we’ve done together from D-Day to what we’ve been doing recently, in supporting Ukraine, or what we’ve done around the world in support of freedom.”
Note: Trump, who has repeatedly praised Russian leader Vladimir Putin and repeatedly criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, has threatened to cut US aid to Ukraine and claims he can “settle” the Ukraine-Russia war before he re-enters the White House.
In addition to Ukraine, Cameron noted another difference of opinion between the US and UK: “Obviously there will be some things with Donald Trump where, this government [the Labour party] or even if it was my government [the Conservative party] wouldn’t necessarily agree with, you know, we’re supporters of taking action to combat climate change. That is not something Trump is,” he laughed, “very big on.”
Cameron tried to put a gloss on the situation by concluding: “So we have our disagreements but it will be contained, I think, in the fact that we have so much in common between our two countries, and so much we need to do together.”
Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said that the UK-US special relationship will “prosper” under a second Trump administration, but many political pundits say the Labour government “has multiple reasons to fear the Republican’s presidential comeback,” including a potential trade war between Trump and the EU which would leave the UK “stuck in the middle.”