David Cameron, former British prime minister and current foreign secretary, held talks with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Monday as part of efforts to urge Republicans to back a $60 billion Ukraine aid package. Dollars.
Cameron, 57, is heading to Washington DC to meet with his US counterpart, Antony Blinken, as well as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, but is not scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden or the president of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Trump and Cameron talked about Ukraine, Israel and NATO’s role in the world, reports The Daily Telegraph.
An anonymous official called the meeting “productive,” as the pair also discussed defense spending and highlighted the “breadth and strength” of the “special relationship.”
It is Johnson who has the power to call a vote in Congress on the security package. So far, the Louisiana conservative has bowed to pressure from Trump and the pro-Putin wing of the Republican Party not to call the vote.
A senior member of the House, Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, told Sky News in an interview in February that Cameron could “lick my ass” after the former prime minister compared those who did not support Ukraine to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler in power. until World War II.
In a memoir published after his resignation, former British Prime Minister David Cameron called Trump “protectionist, xenophobic and misogynist.”
Trump supported Brexit, the 2016 referendum by which the United Kingdom left the European Union and which led to Cameron’s resignation.
During an interview in February 2024, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene mocked Cameron’s claim that not funding Ukraine was similar to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler in the run-up to World War II.
Cameron has previously spoken about Trump in not-so-complimentary terms, referring to him as “stupid,” “wrong” and “misogynist.” The Conservative resigned as prime minister after the 2016 Brexit referendum, in which the United Kingdom left the European Union.
Trump endorsed that vote. In a memoir published after his resignation, Cameron called Trump: “protectionist, xenophobic, misogynist.”
Cameron said last week he would meet Johnson and urge him to approve the $60 billion military aid package for Ukraine, which he has delayed for months.
“Ukraine’s success and Putin’s failure are vital to American and European security,” Cameron said in a statement, saying it was important to demonstrate to Russian President Vladimir Putin that “aggression does not pay.”
“The alternative would only encourage Putin in new attempts to redraw European borders by force, and would be heard clearly in Beijing, Tehran and North Korea.”
The Foreign Office said Cameron would meet congressional leaders from both the Republican and Democratic sides.
Last month, Taylor Greene, a pro-Putin House member, introduced a motion to remove Johnson from his role as spokesman for government spending.
The Foreign Office spokesman did not say what Cameron and Trump, the Republican candidate in November’s presidential election against Biden, would discuss.
“It is standard practice for ministers to meet opposition candidates as part of their routine international engagement,” the spokesperson said.
Britain has been a staunch ally of Ukraine since Russia invaded it in 2022, but Cameron will emphasize that the United States is the “keystone in the arch” as its pace and scale of support for Ukraine is unmatched.
A local resident walks among the ruins of a house destroyed by the recent bombing, which Russian-installed local authorities called a Ukrainian military attack.
A communal worker sits in a crater after the missile attack in Kharkiv
During the trip, Cameron will emphasize the importance of increasing economic pressure on Russia and giving Ukraine “the military and humanitarian support it needs to hold the line this year and go on the offensive in 2025,” the Foreign Office said.
Cameron will also discuss sea routes for aid to Gaza during the trip, as well as pressing for a full and transparent investigation into the “completely unacceptable” deaths of seven aid workers, including three Britons, he added.
Cameron will reiterate Israel’s right to self-defense under international law after the Hamas attacks of October 7, but will emphasize that important changes are needed to ensure the safety of aid workers on the ground, his office said.
In February, Trump said at a campaign rally that he would allow Russia to do “whatever it wants” to NATO allies over those countries’ apparent lack of military spending.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday called the drone attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine “a very dangerous provocation.”
“This is a very dangerous practice that has very bad and negative consequences in the future,” Peskov said during his daily conference call with reporters.
The UN atomic monitoring agency confirmed drone attacks on one of the plant’s six reactors on Sunday, causing one casualty, but did not attribute responsibility to any party.
An official at Energoatom, Ukraine’s atomic energy company, blamed Russia for the attacks, saying they were “a provocation” orchestrated to smear Ukraine.
The plant has repeatedly been caught in the crossfire since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and seized the facility shortly after.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. body, has frequently expressed alarm about the plant amid fears of a possible nuclear catastrophe.
The strikes did not compromise the nuclear facility, which Kremlin forces have been occupying and managing in southern Ukraine since shortly after the war began more than two years ago, the IAEA said.
Both sides have used propaganda and disinformation as weapons during the conflict, and both sides have accused each other on other occasions of plotting attacks on the plant.
Last July, Ukraine and Russia accused each other of planning an attack on the Zaporizhzhia plant, although neither side provided evidence to support their claims.