David Cameron, former British prime minister and current foreign minister, spoke with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Monday as part of efforts to urge Republicans to support a $100 million aid package for Ukraine. 60 billion dollars.
Cameron, 57, is traveling to Washington DC to meet his US counterpart Antony Blinken, as well as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, but is not scheduled to meet President Joe Biden or the Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Trump and Cameron discussed the roles of Ukraine, Israel and NATO in the world, the Daily Telegraph reports.
An anonymous official called the meeting “productive” as the two also discussed defense spending while emphasizing the “extent and strength” of the “special relationship.”
It is Johnson who holds the power to call for a vote in Congress on the security package. The Louisiana conservative has so far bowed to pressure from Trump and the pro-Putin wing of the Republican Party by not demanding the vote.
A senior House member, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, told Sky News in a February interview that Cameron could “lick my ass” after the former prime minister compared those who didn’t support Ukraine with the appeasement of Adolf Hitler in mind. until the Second World War.
In a memoir published after his resignation, former British Prime Minister David Cameron called Trump a “protectionist, xenophobic and misogynist.”
Trump was a supporter of Brexit, the 2016 referendum that saw the United Kingdom leave the European Union and led to Cameron’s resignation.
During a February 2024 interview, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene mocked Cameron’s claim that not funding Ukraine was similar to appeasement of Adolf Hitler in the run-up to World War II .
Cameron has previously spoken of Trump in less than complimentary terms, calling him “stupid,” “wrong” and “misogynistic.” The Conservative resigned as Prime Minister after the 2016 Brexit referendum, which saw the United Kingdom leave the European Union.
Trump approved this vote. In a memoir published after his resignation, Cameron called Trump a “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 been delaying 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 not”.
“The alternative would only embolden Putin in further 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 with congressional leaders from both the Republican and Democratic sides.
Last month, pro-Putin House of Representatives member Taylor Greene filed a motion to oust Johnson from his role as speaker of parliament over government spending.
The Foreign Office spokesperson did not say what Cameron and Trump, the Republican candidate in November’s presidential election against Biden, would discuss.
“It is common 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 the Russian invasion in 2022, but Cameron will stress that it is the United States that is the “key stone in the ark” because its pace and scale of support to Ukraine are unmatched.
A local resident walks through the ruins of a house destroyed by a recent bombing, which Russian-installed local authorities described as a Ukrainian military strike.
A communal worker sits in a crater after the missile attack in Kharkiv
During his trip, Cameron will stress the importance of increasing economic pressure on Russia and providing Ukraine “with the military and humanitarian support it needs to stay the course this year and go on the offensive in 2025,” said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Cameron would also discuss sea routes for aid to Gaza during his trip, and push for a full and transparent investigation into the “totally unacceptable” deaths of seven aid workers, including three Britons, he said. added.
Cameron will reaffirm Israel’s right to self-defense in accordance with international law following the October 7 Hamas attacks, but will emphasize that major changes must be made to ensure the safety of aid workers on the ground, his office said.
In February, Trump told a campaign rally that he would allow Russia to do “whatever it wants” to NATO allies because of that country’s apparent lack of military spending.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday called drone attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine a “very dangerous provocation.”
“This is a very dangerous practice that will have very harmful and negative consequences in the future,” Peskov said during his daily conference call with journalists.
The UN atomic monitoring 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, the Ukrainian atomic energy company, blamed the attacks on Russia, calling them a “provocation” orchestrated to slander Ukraine.
The plant has been caught in the crossfire several times since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and seized the facility shortly after.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, a United Nations body, has often expressed concern about the plant, fearing a potential nuclear disaster.
The strikes did not compromise the nuclear facility that Kremlin forces occupied and operated in southern Ukraine 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 factory.
Last July, Ukraine and Russia accused each other of planning to attack the Zaporizhzhia power plant, although neither side provided evidence to support their claims.
dailymail us
