UK PM Starmer to meet Trump for Ukraine talks

Andrew Sparrow

UK prime minister Keir Starmer is in Washington where later today where he will have his first meeting with President Trump since the inauguration.

With Trump aligning with Moscow even more explicitly than he did during his first administration, and threatening to wind down the Nato guarantees that have underpinned the security of western Europe since the second world war, the stakes could not be higher.

Starmer, despite leading a party whose activists mostly loathe Trump and everything he represents, has managed to establish a warm relationship with the president and today will give some clues as to what extent he can sustain that, and protect the UK from the tariff warfare that Trump is threatening to unleash on the EU.

But Starmer is one of three European leaders in Washington this week (Emmanuel Macron was there on Monday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is there tomorrow) and today’s meeting is also part of a wider story about the fracturing of the US/Europe alliance. It is definitely in trouble; but what is not yet clear is whether after four years of Trump it will still be functioning effectively.

Starmer spoke to reporters on his flight to the US on Wednesday. Pippa Crerar, the Guardian’s UK political editor, was on the plane and, as she reports, Starmer said he wants Trump to agree that, in the event of a peace settlement in Ukraine, the US will offer security guarantees that will make it durable. He has already said that Britain would contribute troops to a European so-called “tripwire” peace-keeping force, there to defend Ukraine and deter Russia. But European soldiers would need US air and logistical support to be effective, and Starmer is looking for assurances on this topic.

You can follow all the latest from Starmer’s DC visit in our dedicated live blog:

The US supreme court has backed the Trump administration in an action over payments due by the US Agency for International Development (USAid), with chief justice John Roberts issuing an “administrative stay” that means the $1.5bn worth of payments can still be delayed.

Donald Trump had ordered the payments to be stopped, but a federal judge had set a deadline for the agencies to release funds for work already carried out. Roberts responded to an emergency appeal by the administration by allowing the payments freeze to continue.

Workers at the agency have described Trump’s proposed cuts as a “catastrophic blow” which will lead to “shuttering life-saving and important programs forever.”

Associated Press reports that after USAid placed 4,080 staffers who work across the globe on leave Monday some have been told they are being given a brief window Thursday and Friday to clear out their workspaces. Each worker is being given just 15 minutes at their former workstation.

Virginia Democratic Rep Gerald Connolly said in a statement that the attack on USAid employees was “unwarranted and unprecedented”.

Welcome to the Guardian’s rolling coverage of US politics and the second Donald Trump administration. Here are the headlines …

• Thousands of US Agency for International Development (USAid) workers who have been fired or placed on leave as part of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the agency are being given a brief window Thursday and Friday to clear out their workspaces.

• The Trump administration said it is eliminating more than 90% of USAid contracts and $60bn in overall US assistance around the world. The supreme court hasbriefly paused a lower court’s ruling ordering the administration to pay for $1.5bn of work already carried out.

• Trump used the first full cabinet meeting of his second term to emphasize his administration’s focus on drastically reducing the size of the federal government, and signed an executive order expanding the power of Elon Musk’s Doge “agency”.

• Trump may be pursuing a mineral rights deal with Vladimir Putin and Russia as well as with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukraine, a top Senate Democrat has warned.

• Transgender service members will be separated from the US military unless they receive an exemption, according to a Pentagon memo filed in court on Wednesday.

• UK prime minister Keir Starmer is due to visit the White House to discuss Trump’s efforts to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine directly with Russia.

• Diplomats from Russia and the US will meet in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss the operation of their respective embassies in Moscow and Washington.