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David Cameron, Britain’s former prime minister and current foreign secretary, held talks with Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago Monday as part of efforts to urge Republicans to back a $60 billion Ukraine aid package.
Cameron, 57, is heading to Washington DC for meetings with his US counterpart, Antony Blinken, as well as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell but he’s not scheduled to meet President Joe Biden or House Speaker 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 unnamed official called the meeting ‘productive’ as the pair also discussed defense spending while highlighting the ‘breadth and strength’ of the ‘special relationship.’
It’s Johnson who holds the power to call a vote in congress over the security package. The Louisiana conservative has so far bowed to pressure from Trump and the pro-Putin wing of the Republican Party in not calling for the vote.
One prominent member of the House, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told Sky News in a February interview that Cameron could ‘kiss my ass’ after the former PM compared those who did not support Ukraine to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler in the lead-up to World War II.
In a memoir published after his resignation, former British Prime Minister David Cameron called Trump: ‘Protectionist, xenophobic, misogynistic’
Trump was a supporter of Brexit, the 2016 referendum that saw the UK leave the European Union and which led to Cameron’s resignation
During a February 2024 interview, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene mocked Cameron’s assertion that not funding Ukraine was similar to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler in the lead-up to World War II
Cameron has previously spoken about Trump in not-so glowing terms, referring to him as ‘stupid,’ ‘wrong’ and ‘misogynistic.’ The Conservative resigned as Prime Minister after 2016’s Brexit referendum which saw the UK leave the European Union.
Trump endorsed that vote. In a memoir published after his resignation, Cameron called Trump: ‘Protectionist, xenophobic, misogynistic.’
Cameron last week said he would see Johnson and urge him to pass the $60 billion package of military aid for Ukraine, which he has held up for months.
‘Success for Ukraine and failure for Putin are vital for American and European security,’ Cameron said in a statement, saying it was important to demonstrate to Russian President Vladimir Putin that ‘aggression doesn’t pay.’
‘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.’
The foreign ministry said Cameron would meet congressional leaders from both the Republican and Democratic sides.
Last month, Taylor Greene, a pro-Putin member of the House, filed a motion to oust Johnson from his role as speaker over government spending.
The Foreign Office spokesperson did not say what Cameron and Trump, the Republican candidate in the November presidential election against Biden, would discuss.
‘It is standard practice for ministers to meet with opposition candidates as part of their routine international engagement,’ the spokesperson said.
Britain has been a staunch ally of Ukraine since Russia invaded in 2022, but Cameron will stress it is the United States that is the ‘key stone in the arch’ as its pace and scale of support for Ukraine is unmatched.
A local resident walks through the ruins of a house destroyed by recent shelling, which local Russian-installed authorities called a Ukrainian military strike
A communal worker sits in a crater after missiles strike 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 ministry said.
Cameron would also discuss maritime routes for aid into Gaza during the trip, as well as push for a full and transparent investigation into the ‘completely unacceptable’ deaths there of seven aid workers, including three Britons, it added.
Cameron will reiterate Israel’s right to self-defense in accordance with international law after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, but will stress that major changes need to be made to ensure the safety of aid workers on the ground, his office said.
In February, Trump told a campaign rally crowd that he would allow Russia to do ‘whatever the hell they want’ to NATO allies over those country’s 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, negative consequences in the future,’ Peskov said during his daily conference call with reporters.
The U.N.’s atomic watchdog agency on Sunday confirmed drone strikes on one of the plant’s six reactors, which caused one casualty, but did not attribute responsibility to either side.
An official at Energoatom, Ukraine’s atomic energy company, blamed Russia for the attacks, saying they were ‘a provocation’ orchestrated to malign 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 potential nuclear catastrophe.
The strikes did not compromise the nuclear facility, which the Kremlin’s forces have been occupying and running in southern Ukraine since shortly after the war began more than two years ago, the IAEA said.
Propaganda and disinformation have been used as weapons by both sides during the conflict, and both sides have accused each other on other occasions of planning attacks on the plant.
Last July, Ukraine and Russia accused each other of planning to attack the Zaporizhzhia plant, though neither side provided evidence to support their claims.
