Brussels – After Ursula von der Leyen, it was British Prime Minister Keir Starmer‘s turn to meet Donald Trump during the latter’s visit to Scotland. It was a wide-ranging conversation, from the tariffs agreement just reached with the EU to the carnage Israel is carrying out in Gaza, via a new ultimatum to Vladimir Putin.
Donald Trump certainly didn’t leave the huddled journalists at the golf club in Turnberry, Scotland, not even for the second day in a row. After announcing yesterday (27 July) together with Ursula von der Leyen the trade agreement with the European Union (he called it “the biggest deal ever made”, despite doubts of several chancelleries among the Twenty-Seven), today the US president had a face-to-face with Her Majesty’s Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer.
Trump also reserved some flattery for the Downing Street tenant, complimenting the latter’s “fantastic job” in securing an even lower basic tariff than that offered in Brussels (10 per cent versus 15 per cent). “They have wanted a trade deal for years, many years,” recalled the tycoon, referring to the difficulties of successive cabinets in London since 2016 in finding a solution with Washington in the post-Brexit era, despite the special relationship between the two countries.
But above all, the White House tenant had some rather sharp words to say on two of the international issues that most concern the United Kingdom and Europe as a whole. Firstly, on the immense massacre perpetrated by Israel in the Gaza Strip over the past 21 months, justified by Benjamin Netanyahu as a necessary response to the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 but unjustifiable from the perspective of international law (to the point of having earned the leader of the Jewish state an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court).
Just as at the UN headquarters in New York, the international conference on Palestine, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, started, between the Scottish hills, Trump and Starmer seemed to agree on the need to enforce a ceasefire immediately and urgently get humanitarian aid into the battered coastal enclave. “We need to increase humanitarian aid,” the host noted, only to be answered by his guest that Washington is “ready to help” to resolve the “terrible situation” Gaza is in, working with the UK (which is already carrying out airlifts of foodstuffs over the Strip).
“We must feed the children,” continued the tycoon, promising that the US will engage “even more” and provide “good and substantial food” to the civilian population, deliberately starved by the Israeli government, by ensuring the establishment of “food distribution centres.” The hope is that such operations will not result in dozens of Palestinians being murdered on a daily basis, as is now the case with the Gaza humanitarian foundation, the Israeli-US body that manages humanitarian aid (the kind that Tel Aviv lets in by the dropper, blaming the UN for its shortage).
The images circulated in recent days show “people really starving, you can’t fake that“, Trump admits, apparently contradicting Netanyahu’s lies that “there is no hunger in Gaza“—but without ever acknowledging the genocidal responsibilities of the Jewish state, which still remains Uncle Sam’s iron ally on the crucial Middle East chessboard. “Israel can do a lot” to get the Gaza residents the food they need, said the president, but it must be done “so that people can enter the Strip.”
Trump also seemed impatient on the subject of the ceasefire, claiming that he had pointed out to the Israeli PM that “now perhaps you will have to act differently” to “end this” and noting that a truce “is possible”, if only to bring home the twenty or so hostages still in the hands of Hamas (detention branded as “very unfair” by the Republican billionaire).
As for the war in Ukraine, the US president took an even tougher stance toward his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, saying he was “very disappointed” in him. So much so that he retracted his previous 50-day ultimatum, issued a couple of weeks ago to the Kremlin’s tenant to agree to sit down at the negotiating table: “I will set a new deadline of about 10 or 12 days from today,” he warned, reserving the right to announce it publicly in the coming hours.
“There is no reason to wait,” explained the tycoon, since “we see no progress” in the negotiations to end the hostilities that have now lasted almost three and a half years, as confirmed by the latest failure of the talks in Istanbul between the delegations from Kyiv and Moscow. If the arms do not fall silent and an agreement is not reached, he threatens, Washington will impose “sanctions and perhaps secondary tariffs” against the Federation.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
