How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?

As the spectre of a second Donald Trump term in the White House looms across the Atlantic, experts are warning of the potential "political threat" to Britain.

Trump won the support of about 51% of Iowa caucus-goers on Monday, demonstrating his enduring domination of the party. If he goes on to win the GOP nomination, the former president faces a bitter rematch against Joe Biden at this year's presidential elections. Polls have consistently put the two neck and neck in the race, despite the 91 felony charges that Trump faces in four criminal cases. 

Richard Dearlove, the former head of the UK's secret intelligence service, told Sky News's Trevor Phillips that Trump's re-election would be "problematic" for the UK's national security, owing to the former leader's long-standing criticisms of Nato. Last week Trump refused to commit to keeping the US in the security alliance, telling Fox News that it "depends on if they treat us properly".

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Since Trump left the White House in 2021, said Sky News, the partnership has become "increasingly important on the world stage", amid Russia's war in Ukraine and the entry to Nato of Finland and, soon, Sweden. The UK's defensive "eggs" are in the Nato basket, Dearlove added, under the "nuclear umbrella" of the US. If Trump "acts hastily and damages the Atlantic alliance, that is a big deal" and "political threat" for the UK.

What the papers said

The US election in November might be "one of the most significant events in Britain's post-war history", wrote Daniel Finkelstein in The Times. Compared with the UK general election, it "has the greater capacity to tear our ship of state from its moorings". 

If Rishi Sunak calls an autumn general election, it will be the first time since 1964 that voters on both sides of the Atlantic have gone to the polls in parallel, noted special correspondent Heather Stewart in The Guardian. Election experts warn that Trump's "extraordinary capacity for sucking in the world's attention could help to shape the UK race in a number of ways". 

UK prime ministerial candidates will have to answer how they would work with "a Trump presidency 2.0", said Stewart. This could "present more hazards" for Labour leader Keir Starmer than Sunak, although is not without risk for either. 

Starmer has said of a potential second Trump term: "We have to make it work." Echoing that message, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy told The Sunday Times that "there will be some differences, but there are many more areas on which we can continue to work together". 

His comments "indicate a softening of tone from Labour towards Trump", said Yahoo! News, and from Lammy himself, a "frequent and outspoken critic of Trump" during his first term, during which he labelled the then president a "racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser".  

Even Trump's detractors will have to start asking themselves whether a second presidency could be "in Britain's self-interest", wrote Ross Clark in The Spectator.  Trump was "never anything other than positive about Britain". Had he remained in office in 2020, it is "very likely" that Britain would by now have a fully working, mostly tariff-free trade deal with its biggest trading partner, Clark argued. 

By contrast, Biden has just "rejected moves" to open negotiations with Britain, and any hope of a US-UK trade deal is "effectively dead for the rest of his presidency". This is "hardly out of character for Biden", whose key Inflation Reduction Act has made it harder for UK clean energy businesses. "A second Trump presidency would be viewed by many in Britain as the return of a dark age," Clark concluded. "But the truth is that it would be more positive for Britain than a second Biden term."

What next?

A "surging Trump campaign will give succour to the Faragists" on the UK's right wing, said Finkelstein. For Labour, the prospect of a Trump presidency would "prompt a debate about security policy and the Atlantic alliance", which Starmer would surely rather avoid. 

But amid increasing geopolitical uncertainty, the world needs the so-called special relationship between the two nations "more than ever", argued US ambassador Jane D. Hartley in The Times. The two militaries "underpin global security and defend democracy around the world", operating "hand in hand as steadfast Nato allies". 

Amid spiralling violence in the Middle East, growing tensions between China and Taiwan, and Russia's continued aggression towards Ukraine, as well as global issues such as AI safety and the climate crisis, maintaining the strong alliance is "vital".