Woody Johnson on what a second Trump term would mean for the ‘Special Relationship’

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

If Donald Trump does return to the White House, then another restoration could soon follow. Woody Johnson, a confidant of the president since the 1980s, served as his man in London from 2017 to 2021 and is now tipped for a second spell as ambassador to the UK. “What I know about President Trump is if he asks you to do something, you probably do it,” Johnson says. “So, it depends on what he would want me to do, if anything. If he would want me to do something, of course I would consider it.”

When we meet at the Republican National Convention in the splendor of Milwaukee’s Pfister Hotel, it is just five days after a would-be assassin’s bullet narrowly avoided killing Johnson’s old friend. “He’s got divine inspiration or divine help. That’s the only way that happened. You know, he turned his head at that millisecond,” Johnson, seventy-seven, says. His admiration for Trump is based on a long-term view: “You have to sit back and take a look at Donald Trump and who he is and what he’s done over the decades and not be distracted.” Johnson lists the press, academic institutions and legal system as “100 percent anti-Trump.” “He’s had huge, huge obstacles and yet somehow, he’s come through. You have to admire that.”

‘I don’t think America is going to sign a big trade deal if you exclude agriculture’

For much of Johnson’s time as ambassador, Britain’s Labour Party was led by Jeremy Corbyn, whose front bench regularly lambasted Trump’s presidency. What advice can he give Starmer’s team on trying to build in-roads during a second term? “I met Keir Starmer and yeah, they did not like Trump. Keir Starmer is better at holding it…” He pauses. “But I would try to keep the emotion out, to be practical and try to get to know in a new and different way what one of your former colonies, what’s going on.” He smiles. “George III, he came to his senses in 1783 when he told his people to give the Americans what they want.”

Starmer’s cabinet includes foreign secretary David Lammy, who wrote in TIME magazine that Trump was a “neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath.” “I think people will remember all those comments,” Johnson says. “It’s a question of how do you recover from them. That was not a wise comment. But those things happen in politics… there’s always a way to recover if you want.”

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, reportedly wants to secure a long-awaited free-trade deal with America. How does Johnson rate Labour’s chances of securing one? “I think it kind of depends on the UK and how they look at themselves regarding Europe,” he says. “If the rules and regulations on food and everything else, the standards are the way they are now, you’re not going to get a trade deal, I don’t think. It’s a big trade deal. I don’t think you can do it because you can’t have two sets of rules. I don’t think America is going to sign it as a big trade deal if you exclude agriculture, for example. I don’t see it.”

Trade is one cornerstone of the US-UK relationship; defense is another. “It’s always better when you have a relationship to agree on most things,” says Johnson. “Prosperity and security were the two things that I focused on.” He suggests that in an age of global instability, “scrimping on and downsizing your capability, both military capability and boots on the ground and all that — it’s not a good idea. If anything, you have to be stronger. You have to commit to it.”

Johnson suggests that in a second term Trump would impose a higher defense spending figure for NATO allies than the 2 percent target set in 2014. “They had that agreement. He expected them to do it and now I think he’s going to set the target higher. I think he would, based on what happened in Ukraine. I don’t think he thinks it’s fair, and he said this, that the American people fight the battles that are, basically, European battles. You guys should be fighting those.”

Much of Europe’s anxiety about Trump’s return concerns his policy towards Ukraine. Some, such as Boris Johnson, insist that he will be a staunch ally of Kyiv’s cause. Others fear he will cut aid and force Volodymyr Zelensky to accept unconscionable terms. “I think you just have to take it at face value what he said, he said ‘I’ll get it solved!’ He thinks he can make a deal. I mean, he’ll certainly try.” Johnson suggests the war might not have happened had Trump been re-elected in 2020. “But now he’ll try to solve it. He doesn’t believe in wasting money and particularly killing people. That’s not what he wants to do. And he’s made some comments about [how] the young men, all the young men, all the leaders and the fathers and all this, are gone. It’s not sustainable and it’s not correct. It’s a bad, bad situation. Horrible.”

Johnson is a staunch Anglophile who won many fans during his four years in London. He invited the capital’s black cab drivers to his residence, sent his son to Eton and even tried to buy Chelsea FC off Roman Abramovich. Already owner of the New York Jets NFL team, he became a soccer convert: “I went to a lot of different games — I always rooted for my host.”

He is full of warm words for Britain: “Going back to William the Conqueror, you have a perspective that we don’t even have.” Some fellow Republicans, though, are less enthusiastic. J.D. Vance, Trump’s pick for vice president, mused that Britain might become the “first truly Islamist country to get a nuclear weapon.” Johnson downplays the remarks: “He’s young. He’s a young man, extremely capable. But he was a senator for what, not even two years… When the two of them, the president, the vice president, get together and decide what they want to do, it will be a joint effort with the president on top.” He adds: “I wouldn’t worry about it,” suggesting that what “comes from the president is love and affection for the country. And that’s what I would try to keep.”

Johnson remains fascinated by British politics, asking who will succeed Rishi Sunak as Tory leader. He sees parallels on both sides of the Atlantic, with voters suffering from incumbent-fatigue. After eight years of Obama, “Now you have Biden, which is an extension like George H.W. Bush, so same deal. And so the lessons are that people get tired of it.” He smiles. “They say that the owner of a dog starts looking like the dog after a while.”

Whatever happens next, Johnson assures me that Trump has an “incredible fondness” for the UK. “I think he’s very proud of it. He doesn’t want you to screw it up.”

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s UK magazine. Subscribe to the World edition here.