This combination of pictures shows Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron and former US President Donald Trump.
| Photo Credit: AFP
U.K. Foreign Secretary and former Prime Minister David Cameron met with former U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss further U.S. aid for Ukraine as it fights Russia. A U.K. Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) spokesperson, who confirmed the meeting in an email to The Hindu, said it was “standard practice” for ministers to meet with opposition candidates. The FCDO did not, however, provide a readout of the meeting.
The meeting with Mr Trump, who is the presumptive GoP nominee for the U.S. presidential elections, comes as Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have been blocking $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, part of a larger foreign aid package that passed the Senate in February. Mr Trump had said in February that he would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies that were not meeting defence spending targets.
Mr Cameron had urged his NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Alliance) counterparts to appeal to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, to push through a a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels last week. Mr Johnson had indicated that the funding package will be considered by the House this week, as it reconvenes after a two week recess.
Mr Johnson, whose position as Speaker is tenuous, faces staunch opposition on funding for Ukraine from hardline Trump-supporting Republicans. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump loyalist, had told CNN last week that the prospect of funding Ukraine “one of the most egregious things” Mr Johnson could do.
The U.S. has already committed $74 billion to Ukraine along with over $184 billion from European countries, including $15 billion from the U.K., as per official data.
“US support for Ukraine has massively degraded the military capacity of a common adversary, Russia has lost half of its pre-invasion land combat power, and a quarter of its original Black Sea fleet, while creating jobs at home and strengthening the Western alliance and NATO,” Mr Cameron said as per the FCDO.
Mr Cameron met with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday morning. He is also expected to meet Mr Johnson and other Congressional leaders as well as Biden administration officials.
Mr Cameron’s office said he would emphasize that “nothing can match the pace and scale” of U.S. support to Ukraine. He would also discuss stepping up economic pressure on Russia, in addition to assistance for Kyiv. He would also discuss the West Asian conflict, “ including the path to a sustainable ceasefire and the delivery of greater quantities of humanitarian aid in Gaza,” the FCDO said.
“The alternative would only encourage Putin in further attempts to re-draw European borders by force, and would be heard clearly in Beijing, Tehran and North Korea,” Mr Cameron said.
Government ministers meeting opposition leaders is not uncommon among democratic countries. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had met with Labour leader Keir Starmer when he visited London in November and Mr Blinken had also met with Mr Starmer in February.
