Keir Starmer and Donald Trump appear to have patched up their rocky relationship at the G7 summit in the first meeting between the pair since falling out over the Iran war
13:59, 16 Jun 2026
Keir Starmer and Donald Trump appear to have patched up their rocky relationship in their first meeting since falling out over the Iran war.
At the G7 summit , the PM said he had had “very productive, very good" talks with the US President and that they “get on really well”. Mr Starmer said they spent Monday evening sitting next to each other at a two-hour dinner and are “talking pretty constantly” throughout the summit in Évian-les-Bains, France.
The relationship between the pair has been under strain since Mr Starmer voiced disagreement with US-Israel strikes on Iran at the end of February.
Asked if Mr Trump was snubbing Mr Starmer, given a one-on-one meeting is not currently in the diary between the pair, Mr Starmer told reporters at the G7: “Honestly, I mean, we’ve just spent two hours last night sat next to each other, chatting to each other. I spoke to him on the phone on Saturday for quite some time, one-to-one, as we often do.
“I’ve been sat next to him and discussing things in the margin with him this morning, and we're about to go into another session in five minutes, where I'll be sitting next to him again. So we are talking pretty constantly throughout this and it’s been very productive, very good conversations.”
In a series of deranged rants earlier this year, the US President repeatedly mocked the British PM, accusing Mr Starmer of being "no Winston Churchill" over his reluctance to let the US launch attacks on Iran from British soil. Mr Trump has also previously ridiculed UK aircraft carriers, calling them "toys", and lashed out at NATO for doing "absolutely nothing" to help the US in his conflict.
And in January, Mr Starmer demanded Mr Trump apologise for insulting British troops who served in Afghanistan . The US President claimed that Nato troops in Afghanistan had “stayed a little back, off the front line," which the PM branded "insulting and frankly appalling".
During the three-day summit, the PM will seek to leave his domestic woes behind him as he returns to the world stage after a miserable week over defence spending disagreements. He appeared to signal there would be no new cash in the Defence Investment Plan after John Healey resigned as Defence Secretary over the settlement last week.
Asked specifically if there would be more money pledged since Mr Healey quit, he did not commit to new money and told reporters that Dan Jarvis, Mr Healey’s replacement, may want to change how the money is spent.
The PM continued: “What we're now doing is going through with the new Defence Secretary, who's obviously reading into this, where he wants that money to be spent. Because he will now want to look at his own priorities and capabilities, and he may want to take a slightly different approach as to what those capabilities and priorities are now he's looking at the plan.”
The PM added that Labour had turned around defence spending since the Tories hollowed out the armed forces . Mr Starmer also confirmed Mr Trump had not raised the UK's defence spending plans with him.
Article continues below
G7 world leaders - including Voldymyr Zelensky - today held discussions on Ukraine . Mr Starmer said there had been a “mood change” over Ukraine with “real unity” between the world leaders. He said: “This morning was about Ukraine - look, there’s a mood change in Uraine in terms of the discussion, just to reflect real unity in the G7 on Ukraine, a real sense that things are changing, that Ukraine is now taking territory, which it has done in the last few months, rather than defending territory, that the impact of sanctions is quite great on Russia .”
Mr Starmer announced 70 new sanctions against Russia on Tuesday morning in a bid to show UK strength against tyrant Vladimir Putin . The package will tackle Russia’s “ghost” shadow fleet, military supply chains and illicit finance networks to disrupt the Kremlin war machine.
Read the full article at Daily Mirror →
United Kingdom