Donald Trump has told Sir Keir Starmer that the US does not need Britain to send its aircraft carriers to the Middle East.
The US President accused the UK of ‘finally giving serious thought’ but appeared to decline the offer in an extraordinary attack on the Prime Minister.
‘That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer,’ Trump said in a post on Truth Social. ‘We don’t need people that join wars after we’ve already won!’
The president’s fiery post comes after it emerged the UK was preparing to deploy HMS Prince of Wales to the Middle East as the conflict with Iran intensifies and criticism mounts over Britain’s military response.
Earlier this week, Trump declared that he was ‘not happy’ with the PM and accused him of being ‘very, very uncooperative’.
In an apparent reference to Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands, the US President said: ‘That island… It’s taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land there.
‘It would have been much more convenient landing there as opposed to flying many extra hours, so we are very surprised.’
Referring to Britain’s war-time PM, a bust of whom sits in the Oval Office, Trump added: ‘This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.’
Donald Trump has told Sir Keir Starmer that the US does not Britain to send its aircraft carriers to the Middle East
The president’s fiery post comes after it emerged the UK was preparing to deploy HMS Prince of Wales (pictured) to the Middle East
The US President went on to criticise the UK’s approach to the ‘stupid island’ as he issued a fresh blast at Sir Keir’s bid to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
‘This is not the age of Churchill. I will say the UK has been very, very uncooperative with that stupid island that they have, that they gave away and took a 100-year lease,’ he told reporters in the Oval Office, as he sat alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
‘Having to do with, perhaps, indigenous people claiming the island that never even saw the island before. What’s that all about? They ruin relationships, it’s a shame.’
Trump’s broadside leaves US-UK relations in a parlous state and is likely to provide further ammunition to the many critics who have accused Sir Keir of damaging Britain’s standing on the global stage.
The US President also repeated his frequent criticism of immigration and energy policies in the UK, saying: ‘I love that country, my mother was born there. But the UK, what they’re doing with energy and what they’re doing with immigration is horrible.’
He urged Sir Keir to ‘open up the North Sea’ and vented about ‘windmills all over the place that are ruining the country, ruining the landscapes, ruining the beautiful fields’.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.