Britain’s David Cameron heads to Washington for talks on Ukraine after meeting with Donald Trump in Florida
WASHINGTON — British Foreign Secretary David Cameron is in Washington on Tuesday to pressure senior Republicans to release money for Ukraine, after meeting with skeptical Donald Trump in Florida.
Cameron says victory for Ukraine is “vital to American and European security,” but the former president and presumptive Republican nominee is a critic of continued U.S. aid, and lawmakers who join him are holding out in Congress on an aid package up for Kiev.
Britain’s Foreign Office confirmed the meeting and said it was “standard practice” for ministers to meet opposition leaders from allied countries in election years.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken met in February with British Labor Party leader Keir Starmer, who is favorite to become prime minister in elections later this year. When Cameron was prime minister in 2012, he met then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
British officials did not say how the meeting went. Cameron and Trump have had several notable disagreements in the past. Cameron called Trump’s proposal during his first presidential campaign to ban Muslims from the US “divisive, stupid and wrong.”
Cameron was British Prime Minister during Britain’s 2016 referendum on whether to leave the European Union — a move he opposed but Trump enthusiastically supported. Cameron resigned after voters narrowly rejected his call to remain in the bloc.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak unexpectedly brought Cameron back into government last year as Britain’s top diplomat.
In Washington, Cameron plans to urge U.S. lawmakers to pass a new aid package for Ukraine, warning Congress that it will endanger the West’s security by holding up funding. He will hold talks with lawmakers, including Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, and hopes to meet House Speaker Mike Johnson, whose role is crucial.
In a video posted to social network X last week, Cameron said: “Speaker Johnson can make it happen in Congress.”
A $60 billion military aid package remains stuck in the House of Representatives as populist conservatives seek to block further funding for the two-year conflict and some mainstream Republicans demand concessions on border security before supporting the bill.
Before the trip, Cameron said that “success for Ukraine and failure for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin are essential to American and European security.”
“This will show that borders matter, that aggression does not pay and that countries like Ukraine are free to choose their own future,” he said. “The alternative would only embolden Putin in further attempts to redraw Europe’s borders by force, and would be heard clearly in Beijing, Tehran and North Korea.”
Cameron will also discuss the Israel-Hamas war, including efforts to reach a “lasting ceasefire” and get more aid into Gaza, in talks with officials including Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Britain is sending a Royal Navy ship to the eastern Mediterranean to strengthen efforts to open a maritime aid corridor between Cyprus and a temporary US-built pier in Gaza.