U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer will meet U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump on Thursday night at Trump Tower in New York.
It will be the first time the pair have met and indicates the new British government’s eagerness to win over the possible next occupant of the Oval Office.
Downing Street aides confirmed the meeting will happen at around 7.15 p.m. Thursday local time — 12.15 a.m. Friday morning in London — while Starmer is in the U.S. for the U.N. General Assembly’s annual meeting of world leaders.
The summit could be awkward because some Starmer allies, including the new British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, criticized the Republican candidate in the past.
This week, Labour’s Immigration Minister Angela Eagle said the former president had emboldened British racists — earning a rebuke from the Trump campaign.
Less than two hours before meeting Trump, Starmer delivered what could be interpreted as a thinly veiled message to the Republican candidate, who has been critical of the U.N.
London fears that Trump could pull funding from the U.N. if he wins the presidential election.
“People talk about an age of polarization, impunity, instability and an unraveling of the U.N. charter. And I feel a sense of fatalism has taken hold,” Starmer told the General Assembly.
“But our task is to say no … This is the moment to reassert fundamental principles and our willingness to defend them. To recommit to the U.N., to internationalism, to the rule of law.”
Starmer’s team had also hoped to secure a meeting with Kamala Harris, the vice president and Democratic candidate for the White House, but she was unavailable.
Starmer has spoken to Trump once in the past by phone after the first assassination attempt against the former president.
He mooted meeting both Trump and Harris during a visit to Washington, D.C., two weeks ago but neither was available.
