Trump says US-UK relationship 'not like it used to be'

LONDON: US President Donald Trump said the historical relationship between his country and Britain was “not like it used to be”, in an interview to British daily newspaper The Sun, amid a major transatlantic fall out over US-Israeli strikes against Iran.

“This was the most solid relationship of all. And now we have very strong relationships with other countries in Europe,” he said, singling out France and Germany, after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s initial refusal to allow the United States to use British military bases in its war with Iran.

Trump said Starmer “has not been helpful”, adding: “I never thought I’d see that. I never thought I’d see that from the UK. We love the UK.”

In a telephone interview from the White House on Monday evening, Trump said: “This was the most solid relationship of all. And now we have very strong relationships with other countries in Europe.”

“It’s a different world, actually. It’s just a much different kind of relationship that we’ve had with your country before.

“It’s very sad to see that the relationship is obviously not what it was,” he added.

The scathing comments come a day after Trump described Starmer’s reaction as “very disappointing” in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

He added that Starmer’s later decision to allow the use of UK bases on specific grounds as “useful” but said it “took far too much time”.

Any potential military action in the Middle East is politically sensitive in the UK following former prime minister Tony Blair’s disastrous support for the US-led invasion of Iraq.