President Donald Trump lashed out at one of the United States’ closest allies on Tuesday, criticizing UK Prime Minister Keir Stormer for initially not allowing US warplanes to use UK bases to attack Iran.
“This is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with,” Trump said at the White House, referring to Stormer’s legendary World War Two predecessor.
Trump said the historic relationship between the United States and Britain is “not what it used to be” amid a diplomatic backlash over the US-Israeli attack on Iran.
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“The UK is very uncooperative,” he said while sitting next to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the White House.
“I’m not happy in the UK,” he said. “It will take three, four days to work out where we can land.”
British Prime Minister Keir Stormer – who told parliament on Monday his government “does not believe in regime change from the sky” – has drawn Trump’s ire by initially refusing to have any role in Washington’s war with Iran.
Stormer later agreed to a US request to use two British military bases “for a specific and limited defensive purpose”.
But the episode angered Trump, who previously told British daily tabloid The Sun: “It was the strongest relationship of all. And now we have very strong relationships with other countries in Europe”, apart from France and Germany.
Stormer has developed a warm relationship with the unpredictable Trump, who made an unprecedented second state visit to Britain last year.
The so-called special relationship between the World War II allies was largely built on long-standing defense cooperation and intelligence sharing.
However, any potential military action in the Middle East would be politically sensitive in the UK following former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s disastrous support for the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Trump’s comments to the Sun came before Stormer announced on Tuesday that it was sending helicopters with counter-drone capabilities and the frigate HMS Dragons to bolster Cyprus’ defenses as part of its “defensive operations”.
The move came after a British Royal Air Force (RAF) base on the eastern Mediterranean island was attacked early Monday by Iranian-made drones, one of which crashed onto the runway.
“The UK is fully committed to the security of Cyprus and British military personnel stationed there,” Stormer said at X, adding, “We will always act in the interests of the UK and our allies.”
‘not useful’
Trump told the Sun that Stormer was “not helpful”, adding: “I never thought I’d see that. I never thought I’d see that from the UK. We love the UK.”
“It’s just a different kind of relationship … It’s very sad to see that the relationship is not clear,” he said.
Government minister Darren Jones defended Stormer’s decision to only engage in military operations if there was a “legal basis” and a “clear plan” in the UK’s own national interest.
“That is why we were not involved in the initial attacks in Iran,” he said.
Two UK bases – one in Gloucestershire in western England and a UK-US base on Diego Garcia Island in the Indian Ocean – have now been cleared for use by the Americans, he said.
“We all remember the mistakes of Iraq and we learned those lessons,” Stormer told parliament on Monday.
He stressed that the Akrotiri base in Cyprus was “not being used by US bombers”.
staunch friends
Asked about Trump’s remarks, Stormer’s spokesman said the UK and the US remained staunch allies.
“That reflects decades of that special relationship, whether it’s national security or trade or beyond,” the spokesman said.
British politicians are haunted by the 2003 Iraq war, in which 179 UK soldiers are reported to have died.
A UK official inquiry into the conflict later found that Blair acted on faulty intelligence when deciding to join the war.
Avi Aspinall, director of the British Foreign Policy Group think tank, told AFP Stormer was facing a “very tight diplomatic tightrope” with the US, which was “crucial in the case of Ukraine and Greenland”.
(AFP, France 24 with Reuters)
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