(photo credit Fourth Day)
For over a century now, the UK and US have always shared a special bond with each other, having fought alongside each other in dozens of conflicts, trading with one another and looking out for each other. However, we’ve seen this relationship starting to fall apart since the Trump administration took back the White House in 2025 and relations have aged like milk.
After only being in power for less than two months, Vice President JD Vance made some disrespectful comments about British and French armed forces during plans to make a potential peacekeeping force in Ukraine.
“Better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years’.”
Vance was quick to clarify that he hadn’t even mentioned the UK or France, but at the time France and the UK were the only nations willing to put a peacekeeping force on the ground in Ukraine. So, it’s still unclear which nation Vance was referencing to, but his comments deeply upset both British and French veterans and soured relations with the British and French armed forces.
When the Trump administration isn’t insulting our troops, Trump himself is hurling insults at our politicians, one in particular is the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.
He branded the mayor as “horrible, disgusting, vicious and incompetent”.
Just a few months prior to Trump saying this, he told reporters on Air Force One, that he personally requested Sadiq Khan not be invited to the Royal banquet at Windsor Castle. This petty feud with the leader of Britain’s most important city is extremely damaging for US and UK relations when one of the most senior politicians of this country is disregarded by one of our closest allies.
More recently, we’ve seen the US make threats towards Britain and several other NATO members in the forms of tariffs, due to Britains opposition to a proposed US takeover of Greenland. Trump has threatened the UK with an additional 10% tariffs which could rise to 25% by June if a purchase deal isn’t reached.
Prime Minister Kier Starmer told Trump in a phone call about the tariffs telling the President: “Applying tariffs on allies for pursuing the collective security of NATO allies is wrong.”
President Trump had already placed a 10% tariff on the UK back in May on various British goods. One industry that’s suffered massively from these tariffs is the whisky industry; the Scottish Whisky Association had estimated that the first set of tariffs was costing the industry around £20 million every month. These further tariffs could seriously damage the whisky industry and could cost dozens of jobs and have a negative impact on the UK economy.
If this wasn’t enough reason to start being sceptical about the current US government, multiple former British ambassadors to the United States have warned about sharing information with the current government.
Former British ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald who served as ambassador from 2007-2012 stated at a committee hearing back in March: “The relationship would be trickier to handle than probably at any other time.” He further added that some of the people appointed by Trump could “present some difficulties in terms of their view of us and views of co-operation.”
All of this has happened in just one year of the Trump administration being back in office. This should be a reminder to the UK government, to not place all of our eggs in one basket and to remember that as a nation we have multiple allies across the world who we can count on. This certainly isn’t the end of special relationship, but it’s definitely taken a toll on it and for the time being, maybe the UK government can look to our friends next door in Europe for companionship.
