Does Donald Trump need Keir Starmer’s ‘bridge’ to Europe?

This week, British prime minister Keir Starmer is heading to Washington to establish himself as a “bridge” between the United States and the European Union, and to breathe new life into the Anglo-American Special Relationship. There is much to discuss between the historic allies.

Starmer has announced that a “security guarantee” from America is the only way there can be “a lasting peace agreement… the only way to effectively deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again.” Trump is negotiating an agreement with Putin, and leaving it to the Europeans to defend the continent while America attends to other business in the Pacific, Greenland, Panama, the Middle East and any other places Trump feels it is in the interest of America to assert its presence.

Starmer has said that he is putting Britain on a “pathway” to raising spending on defense from 2.3 percent of GDP to 2.5 percent over some unspecified period of time. That increase will require the UK chancellor, who heard the pips squeak when she announced tax increases at her recent budget, to come up with billions more. Trump has put the right number for European defense spending at 5 percent of GDP.

If Keir Starmer is to act as a “bridge” to Washington, it will have to be a very long bridge.

Starmer, a human rights lawyer, believes in protecting the right of immigrants who arrive illegally in the UK to apply for asylum. Trump was elected to arrest, put in manacles and deport to their home countries immigrants who have arrived illegally in the US.

Starmer planned to turn over control of the Chagos Islands, which contain an important US military base on Diego Garcia, to China-friendly Mauritius, with serious consequences for the base’s security from spying and attack by China. Trump is pivoting resources to the Asia-Pacific region to confront China’s rising military presence and belligerence, in anticipation of a conflict over Taiwan.

Starmer and his cabinet colleague, Ed Miliband, maintain a ban on fracking as they steer Britain towards “net zero” emissions. Trump is encouraging fracking with his “drill, baby, drill” policy, believes climate change is “a hoax,” and would like to sell Britain more of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) Miliband would not welcome to his country.

Starmer and his chancellor want to accelerate economic growth in the UK’s moribund economy while raising taxes. Trump plans to accelerate economic growth in America’s booming economy by cutting taxes.

When it comes to the Middle East, a region important to Trump’s drive for a Nobel Peace Prize, Starmer has imposed a ban on some weapons sales to Israel. Trump has removed Biden’s ban on sending America’s most lethal weapons to Israel. Starmer plans to fully comply with a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court and arrest Israeli prime minister Bibi Netanyahu should he touch down on British soil. Trump has ordered that ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, a British citizen, be added to America’s “Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List.”

Starmer believes the Gazans “must be allowed to rebuild… on the way to a two-state solution.” Trump has proposed an alternative to prevent re-establishment of the situation that produced Hamas’s October 7 assault on Israel. Starmer rushed to the media to announce his opposition to Trump’s plan (or opening bid, if history is any guide). The president’s move has forced Egypt to counter with a plan to rebuild Gaza, starting with destroyed infrastructure and the exclusion of Hamas from Gaza’s future.

Poor Starmer can’t even play his trump card and invite the president to a state banquet. His foreign secretary, David Lammy, has announced there will be no state visit for the president, a fan of the royal family, at least not this year, because such dinners “take a while to organize.” Indeed.

As far as we know, no European leader has declined to take a call from the president of the United States, and referred him instead to Starmer.

Since America already has moved the original London Bridge to Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and Trump, a builder, probably knows all about the wobbly Millennium Bridge, it is unclear why Trump needs the “Starmer Bridge” to Europe at all.