Donald Trump may have put the US-UK special relationship in jeopardy with his pick for vice-president, pundits are warning.
Hours before the Republican National Convention kicked off in Milwaukee yesterday, the former president named Ohio's Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate for the November election. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said former venture capitalist Vance – a one-time "Never Trump" Republican who once dubbed him an "idiot" and suggested he could be "America's Hitler" – was "best suited" to the role of prospective VP.
The UK may disagree. Last week, Vance described Britain under the new Labour government as "the world's first 'truly Islamist country' to have a nuclear weapon", said Politico. Speaking at the right-wing National Conservatism conference in Washington, the 39-year-old acknowledged that he was "beating up on the UK", but added: "To my Tory friends I have to say, you guys really gotta get a handle on this."
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Trump has "sent a clear message to Britain" with his VP pick, said MailOnline, as the former US leader gets back on the campaign trail following Saturday's failed assassination attempt. Vance's claim about the UK being an "Islamist" country has added to existing fears that the UK's special relationship with the US could "decline sharply" if Trump returns to power.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said she "doesn't recognise" Vance's characterisation of the UK. "I think he's said quite a lot of fruity things in the past," Rayner told ITV's "Good Morning Britain". But the US is a "key ally of ours", and should Trump and Vance prove victorious "we'll work together constructively".
Labour is "scrabbling to cement a better relationship with the Republicans", said The Telegraph. David Lammy, now foreign secretary, has been meeting senior Republicans for months to smooth relations between Labour and the GOP, which is in "pole position" to take power in the US in November.
Having previously called Trump a "woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath" and a "profound threat", Lammy has since tempered his remarks. "It doesn't matter who is in Number 10, you work with the United States," he said. After meeting Vance in May, the foreign secretary described him as a "friend" and praised "Hillbilly Elegy", Vance's bestselling book about growing up in poverty-stricken Appalachia, with Lammy drawing parallels with his own upbringing.
All the same, Vance's latest comments could "complicate" Keir Starmer's relationship with a Trump administration. The "Islamist" barb could have also been aimed at Sadiq Khan, who has a long and contentious history with Trump. The London mayor called him a "racist, sexist homophobe"; Trump retaliated by describing Khan as a "stone cold loser" who had been "foolishly nasty".
Beyond "fruity" rhetoric, Vance is a champion of "America first" isolationist mentality on trade and foreign policy, said Euractiv. That could "cause trouble" for Europe and intensify fears that Trump would undermine Washington's commitment to Nato. Vance has echoed Trump's stance that Nato states have relied on the US for a "blanket of security" for "far too long" and should take more responsibility for their defence.
What next?
Diplomats expect Vance to "support a hawkish China policy, pushing Europeans even further on the confrontational path with Beijing", said Euractiv, amid "tit-for-tat probes into trade barriers over a series of products from electric vehicles to pork and brandy". "I'm much more interested in some of the problems in East Asia right now," said Vance earlier this year. East Asia will be "the future of American foreign policy for the next 40 years, and Europe has to wake up to that fact".
But several commentators are "particularly worried" about Vance's "vocal opposition to US aid for Ukraine". Labour has reasserted its commitment to supporting the war-torn nation, but Vance has made his "disdain" for Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelenskyy "palpably clear", said Jacob Heilbrunn in The Spectator. Vance has also said he does not believe Vladimir Putin poses an existential threat to Europe.
An increasingly tense world needs the special relationship "more than ever", said US ambassador to the UK Jane D. Hartley in The Times in January. The two militaries "underpin global security and defend democracy around the world". Amid spiralling violence in the Middle East, tensions with China, Russia and Iran, and issues such as AI safety and the climate crisis, maintaining the alliance is "vital".
