President Donald Trump’s UK visit delivered not just a technology partnership agreement but also friction—clashing with Prime Minister Keir Starmer on tariffs, immigration, and foreign policy.
President Donald Trump’s state visit to the United Kingdom last week sought to project strength in the “special relationship” between Washington and London. Beneath the royal pageantry, however, the alliance is shifting toward a harder, more transactional footing.
That’s the view of Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest, who joins Paul Saunders on the Three Questions podcast to dissect the trip. Heilbrunn notes that the headline achievement—a technology partnership agreement with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, backed by over $200 billion in US investment pledges from firms such as Microsoft and Blackstone—was politically useful for both leaders. Britain, he says, has “been faltering since Brexit,” while Trump is “keen to show that foreign investment is taking place in the United States.”
But significant differences remain. Tariffs on British steel and aluminum, a top priority for Starmer, remain in place, underscoring the limits of London’s sway over Trump’s protectionist agenda. “It shows the extent to which tariffs have become an inviolable principle for him,” Heilbrunn notes.
The visit also highlighted clashing worldviews. Trump pressed for a tougher British line on immigration, even suggesting the military be deployed to guard borders, while Starmer emphasized multilateral solutions. On climate, Trump dismissed wind power as a “very expensive joke,” setting himself against the UK’s renewable energy strategy. And on foreign policy, Starmer struck a harder tone on Russia and Gaza than his American counterpart. “Differences emerge between Starmer and Trump over Israel and the Gaza Strip and over Russia and Ukraine,” Heilbrunn explains.
For Britain, the visit provided short-term optics but revealed deeper vulnerabilities, as the special relationship shifts from an alliance historically rooted in shared values to one defined by transactional, interest-based negotiations.
Does the “special relationship” still matter in an era of Trump?
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About the Speakers:
Paul J. Saunders is President of the Center for the National Interest and a member of its board of directors. He is also Publisher of The National Interest. His expertise spans US foreign and security policy, energy security and climate change, US-Russia relations and Russian foreign policy, and US relations with Japan and South Korea. Saunders is a Senior Advisor at the Energy Innovation Reform Project, where he served as President from 2019 to 2024. He has been a member of EIRP’s board of directors since 2013 and served as chairman from 2014 to 2019. At EIRP, Saunders has focused on the collision between great power competition and the energy transition, including such issues as energy security, energy technology competition, and climate policy in a divided world. In this context, he has engaged deeply in energy and climate issues in the Indo-Pacific region, especially US relations with Japan and South Korea. His most recent project at EIRP is an assessment of Russia’s evolving role in the global energy system.
Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of The National Interest and is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. He is the author of They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, which The New York Times included on its 100 notable books of the year in 2008, and America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators. He has written on both foreign and domestic issues for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Reuters, Washington Monthly, and The Weekly Standard. He has also written for German publications such as Cicero, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Der Tagesspiegel.
Image: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosts US President Donald Trump at Chequers on September 18, 2025. (Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street)
