Donald Trump has told Sir Keir Starmer to ‘straighten out’ the UK, claiming London has ‘a lot of problems’.
At a White House press briefing tonight, held on the first anniversary of his second inauguration, Trump spoke on a vast range of topics for more than an hour, hyping up his administration’s achievements before taking questions from reporters.
Asked about his relationship with Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron, he said: ‘They’ve got to straighten out their countries – you look at London, it’s having a lot of problems and if you look at Paris, got a lot of problems.’
He said both the UK and France face problems with immigration and energy, and called on the UK to stop the use of windmills and instead use gas and oil from the North Sea.
Trump also issued an ominous warning regarding Greenland, which both the UK and France have a vested interest in, and how far he would go to take it from Denmark, stating: ‘You’ll find out’.
The Republican president admitted that while he hadn’t spoken with Starmer or Macron since his Truth Social posts about them this morning, he said he ‘get[s] along very well with them’, though added: ‘They get a little bit rough when I’m not around’.
‘You know. I like both of them; they’re both liberal.’
Trump’s post about Starmer this morning saw the American leader describe the UK’s decision to ‘give away the island of Diego Garcia’ as ‘an act of GREAT STUPIDITY’.
Donald Trump (pictured) has told Sir Keir Starmer to ‘straighten out’ the UK, claiming Londonhas ‘a lot of problems’
Asked about his relationship with Keir Starmer (pictured) and French president Emmanuel Macron, he said: ‘They’ve got to straighten out their countries
This is despite having previously signed off on a £3.4billion deal to lease the island back to Mauritius.
Asked whether he thought the deal should now not go ahead, the US president told a White House press conference: ‘I think that they, you know, when they originally were going to do it, they were talking about doing some concept of ownership but now they’re looking to essentially just do a lease and sell it.
‘And I’m against that. It’s a reasonably – nothing like Greenland – but it’s a reasonably important part of area of the globe. Not anywhere near Greenland, but I think they should keep it.
‘I don’t know why they’re doing (it), do they need money?’
He added that he has ‘lot of meetings scheduled on Greenland, and I think things are going to work out pretty well’, referencing his imminent appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, for which he will be leaving on Tuesday evening from Washington.
Ahead of Trump’s White House briefing, Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a separate news conference that the Arctic island’s population.
He added that authorities need to prepare for a possible military invasion amid pressure from Trump, saying: ‘It’s not likely there will be a military conflict, but it can’t be ruled out.’
France’s President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he delivers a speech during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on January 20, 2026
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing at the White House, on the one-year mark into his second term in office, in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 20
Trump also spoke of the US’ relationship with NATO, claiming: ‘I think something’s gonna happen that’s gonna be very good for everybody.
‘Nobody’s done more for NATO than I have, as I said before, in every way. Getting them to go up to 5% of GDP… at 2% they weren’t paying, at 5% they are paying. They’re buying a lot of stuff from us, and they’re giving it to Ukraine.
‘I think we will work something out where NATO’s gonna be very happy, and we’re gonna be very happy. But we need it for security purposes, we need it for national security and even world security.’