Lord Cameron has held face to face meetings with Donald Trump in Florida during his push for the US to back more funding for Ukraine.
The foreign secretary is visiting the former US president despite previously calling him “divisive, stupid and wrong”. It was the first meeting between a senior British minister and the former Republican president since he left office in 2021.
Lord Cameron is on a high profile visit to the US to press Congress to pass the blocked aid package for Ukraine and will also discuss Israel’s war in Gaza.
It is the latest of several interventions made by the foreign secretary over the additional funding for Ukraine. Earlier this year, he warned Congress not to show “the weakness displayed against Hitler” in the 1930s.
His previous comments drew the ire of right-wing congresswoman and staunch Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene, who told him to “kiss my ass” and “worry about his own country”.
Lord Cameron flew on Monday night and met Mr Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
The Foreign Office insisted that it was “standard practice for ministers to meet with opposition candidates as part of their routine international engagement.”
But in 2012, when he was prime minister, Lord Cameron raised eyebrows when he met the Republican candidate for president Mitt Romney during a campaigning and fundraising trip to London.
During his visit, Lord Cameron is hoping for a breakthrough with Republican lawmakers in Congress who have been blocking a $60bn (over £47.5bn) military aid package for Ukraine amid its two-year-long war with Russia.
He will hold talks with US secretary of state Antony Blinken and key figures across Congress on Tuesday to call them to “change the narrative on Ukraine this year” and release the funding.
He will tell the American leaders that the “success for Ukraine and failure for [Vladimir] Putin are vital for American and European security”.
“This will show that borders matter, that aggression doesn’t pay and that countries like Ukraine are free to choose their own future,” the Foreign Office said.
“The alternative would only encourage Putin in further attempts to re-draw European borders by force, and would be heard clearly in Beijing, Tehran and North Korea.
“US support for Ukraine has massively degraded the military capacity of a common adversary, Russia has lost half of its pre-invasion land combat power, and a quarter of its original Black Sea fleet, while creating jobs at home and strengthening the Western alliance and Nato.”
Republicans within the US Congress have blocked the latest tranche of the package to Ukraine for months. The Republicans in the House of Representatives have demanded concessions on border security before supporting the bill.
The former president, who has claimed he would end the war in Ukraine “in one day”, has long been critical of the huge amount of economic and military aid the US has given Ukraine.
Last month he appeared to soften his tone on Nato in the wake of uproar after he said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to members who don’t pay their fair share.
In 2015, Mr Cameron described the former Republican president’s “Muslim ban” travel policy as “divisive, stupid and wrong” and criticised his disagreement with Ukraine aid as “not a sensible approach”.
Ms Taylor-Greene’s response came to an article penned by Lord Cameron, cautioning the US against mirroring “the weakness displayed against Hitler in the 1930s”.
The Foreign Office said the talks with Mr Blinken and other Biden administration officials will also focus on the ceasefire in Gaza and the delivery of greater quantities of aid.
He will also “push for a full, urgent, and transparent investigation into the terrible events in Gaza” after the “completely unacceptable” deaths of three British men working for aid organisation World Central Kitchen in the Israeli drone strike.
Both Mr Trump and the White House have been approached for comment.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
