Starmer says Trump wants to ‘stay in touch’ after he steps down

Keir Starmer said Trump had thanked the UK at the Nato summit in Ankara for the contribution it had made to defence spending. Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters View image in fullscreen Keir Starmer said Trump had thanked the UK at the Nato summit in Ankara for the contribution it had made to defence spending. Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters Starmer says Trump wants to ‘stay in touch’ after he steps down PM suggests maintaining links with US president will be part of his continued responsibility to UK-US relationship Europe live – latest updates Donald Trump has agreed to stay in touch with Keir Starmer after he steps down from No 10 despite his increasingly tense relationship with the UK prime minister over recent months. After meeting at the Nato summit in Ankara , Starmer suggested that maintaining links with the US president would be part of his continued responsibilities to the strategic relationship between the two countries. Despite fears that Trump could further destabilise the military alliance at the summit with an angry tirade over defence spending, Starmer said the UK had swerved criticism over its contributions. He told reporters: “Let me just share with you the closing words of President Trump … who thanked everybody there for the spirit of the meeting and the unity of the meeting. So far as funding is concerned, speaking only for the United Kingdom, President Trump thanked us for the contribution we made over many years in material terms.” Trump renews call for US to take over Greenland as he arrives for Nato summit Read more The US president had shared a chart with fellow Nato leaders of their defence spending in real terms, Starmer said, with the UK in second place over the last decade, although the country is 12th out of 32 members on spending as a proportion of GDP. Earlier this week Trump suggested that the UK was a “deindustrialised welfare zone” and was in decline, blaming it on Starmer’s “weak leadership”, the latest in a series of attacks on the prime minister after he refused to get more involved in the US’s war against Iran. But despite nearing the end of his time in office, Starmer declined to comment on the latest salvo. “Having resisted so far, I’m not going to be tempted at the last hurdle into starting commenting on what other people may say or not,” he said. “We have turned this country around in the last two years, where we’ve got a stronger economy, stronger public services, stronger defence and security … Our international standing two years after I took office is undoubtedly in a much better position than it was when I took over.” Despite tensions in recent months, Starmer said that over the longer term the pair had “got along really well”. He added: “There’s no doubt about that, and we discussed a moment ago, we’ll stay in touch … “That is important in terms of the relationship between the UK and the US, because it is a really important strategic relationship for the UK. I saw it as my duty to make sure it’s a re