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During his second state visit to the United Kingdom, US President Donald Trump suggested that the country should “call out the military” to control its borders. The remarks from the American leader came during his joint press conference with the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
During his two-day state visit, Trump has managed to avoid tensions with the Brits. However, he eventually described the UK’s plan to recognise the Palestinian state as “one of our few disagreements”. Earlier, it was reported that the UK is planning to recognise the state of Palestine as early as Friday, after Israel failed to meet certain conditions to prevent this from happening.
It is important to note that Trump’s visit to the UK was officially hosted by King Charles III. The visit came at the end of a turbulent few weeks for Starmer in which he lost his deputy, Angela Rayner, and was attacked for his handling of the Peter Mandelson row, with his position as leader coming under question by his own MPs.
Both leaders avoid the Mandelson scandal
At a closely managed press conference at Chequers, Starmer avoided coming under pressure over Mandelson’s links with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Even Trump dismissed a question about the former UK ambassador to the US. “I don’t know him,” he said, even though the pair had met previously, including for talks on whisky tariffs in the Oval Office this month. Interestingly, Trump has once praised Mandelson’s “beautiful accent”.
Overall, Trump ended his lavish state visit, warning that illegal immigrants could destroy the UK. At the press conference, he suggested that Starmer urge the UK to follow the US in taking tough action to stop migrants from unlawfully crossing its southern border.
“I think your situation is very similar. You have people coming in, and I told the prime minister I would stop it, and it doesn’t matter if you call out the military, it doesn’t matter what means you use,” Trump said. “It destroys countries from within, and we’re actually now removing a lot of the people that came into our country.”
Trump’s remarks on the matter came the same day the UK conducted its first deportation of a Channel migrant to France under Starmer’s “ one in, one out” deal, with further flights due to take place in the coming days. Meanwhile, some MPs from Starmer’s own Labour Party have suggested the government should send the Royal Navy into the Channel to prevent small boat crossings, an approach tried and failed under former UK PM Boris Johnson in 2022 and 2023.
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