Keir Starmer to press Donald Trump on US military back-up to Ukraine

Good morning and welcome to White House Watch. Today Donald Trump will host UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who made the president happy earlier this week by announcing that London will increase defence spending. Until then, let’s get into:

The stakes are high for the Trump-Starmer meeting.

The UK premier will warn Trump that peace in Ukraine can’t be secured unless the US offers back-up for any European peacekeeping force. However, yesterday, Trump said at his first cabinet meeting that “I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much”.

“We’re going to have Europe do that” because “Europe is the next-door neighbour”, he added.

Starmer will tell Trump that while the UK would play a critical role in boosting Europe’s military capabilities, a US “backstop” is vital. “I don’t think there will be a deterrent to Putin if we don’t have one,” Starmer told reporters while en route to Washington.

European officials hope the US will give peacekeepers weaponry that could be deployed to Ukraine quickly, such as heavy lift capabilities, air defence and long-range missiles.

The PM’s trip comes ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s own visit to the White House tomorrow, when he and Trump are expected to sign a critical minerals deal.

Washington and Kyiv struck the deal on Tuesday after Ukrainian negotiators convinced Washington to drop demands for $500bn in potential revenue from the deal.

But absent is an explicit guarantee from the US on Ukrainian security that Kyiv desperately wanted in return for sharing profits from its valuable natural resources. 

“It does not contain all the security guarantees Ukraine wanted, but I wanted at least one sentence mentioning guarantees — and it is there,” Zelenskyy said on Wednesday. He said the future of the agreement would hinge on his broader talks with Trump and his stance on supporting Ukraine.

Under the agreed terms, Kyiv and Washington will establish a “joint investment fund” into which Ukraine will pay half of all revenues earned from the “future monetisation” of government-owned natural resources. In theory, the fund would invest in Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction and economic development. 

The idea is for the fund to be jointly managed and owned by the US and Ukrainian governments, but further details still need to be ironed out.

Here is the full text of the US-Ukraine minerals deal.

The latest headlines

What we’re hearing

Trump wants more wealthy foreigners to flock to the US, so he said the US would start selling $5mn residency “gold cards” that come with a path to citizenship.

He claims the scheme would be like a “green card plus” that would attract talent and reduce the national debt as the government collects the fees.

The concept is not new, though the US price tag is a premium one. Plenty of countries compete viciously to sell residency or citizenship rights to the wealthy as the global millionaire class expands and more members are on the hunt for pads abroad. 

But the trend has fuelled concerns about security risks and potential money laundering.

Nuno Cunha Barnabé, a lawyer who advises on a similar visa scheme in Portugal, told the FT’s Barney Jopson: “The big question is whether the [US gold card] programme is available to people who are sanctioned by the EU or the UK.” People under sanction by the US would be barred.

Michael Wildes of Wildes & Weinberg, an immigration lawyer who has worked with clients including Melania Trump, called the card proposal “a marketing ploy”.

“The numbers don’t have to be $5mn. Not everything big is good,” he added. 

Other lawyers pointed out that paying $5mn isn’t as attractive as investing in an asset that would generate a return.

Trump is keen to start the programme, hoping to launch it in two weeks.

“I happen to think it’s going to sell like crazy. It’s a market,” Trump said yesterday. “I think it’s going to be very treasured.”

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