David Cameron meets Trump at Mar-a-Lago

Lord Cameron, the UK foreign secretary, is stopping off at Mar-a-Lago tonight before once again making the rounds in Washington, DC to tub-thump for Ukraine aid. Cameron, who served as Britain’s prime minister from 2010 to 2016, is meeting with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has been skeptical about Ukraine’s prospects of beating back the Russian invaders.

A spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office downplayed the significance of Cameron meeting Trump as “standard practice.”

“The foreign secretary is on his way to Washington DC, where he will hold discussions with US secretary of state Blinken, other Biden administration figures and members of Congress,” the spokesperson said. “His talks will focus on a range of shared US-UK priorities, including securing international support for Ukraine and bringing stability to the Middle East.

“Ahead of his visit to Washington, the foreign secretary will meet former president Trump in Florida today. It is standard practice for ministers to meet with opposition candidates as part of their routine international engagement.”

Lord Cameron’s meeting with Trump could relate to the crunch talks he claimed to have planned with House Speaker Mike Johnson, though the Financial Times reported that there were no plans for Cameron and Johnson to meet. Speaker Johnson is struggling to pass another $60 billion in military aid for Ukraine, due to resistance from within his own party. Florida congressman Mike Waltz, for example, declared that the “era of Ukraine’s blank check from Congress is over.”

“In the near term, US military aid must be contingent on European burden sharing and equal European assistance going forward,” Waltz wrote for Fox News. “The US has provided nearly as much military aid to Ukraine — a reported $46.6 billion — as every other nation combined

Meanwhile Cameron wrote a joint op-ed in the Telegraph with his French counterpart Stéphane Séjourné on Sunday. “We are both absolutely clear: Ukraine must win this war,” the ministers write. “If Ukraine loses, we all lose. The costs of failing to support Ukraine now will be far greater than the costs of repelling Putin.”

The former PM also jointly wrote an article for Foreign Policy with Swedish foreign minister Tobias Billstrom to mark NATO’s seventy-fifth birthday last week. “All allies must invest more,” Cameron and Billstrom urged.

Cameron is the first senior member of the British government to visit Trump since he left office in 2021. He comes to the East Coast two months after Liz Truss, who spoke in glowing terms about the former president. Will Cameron end up dancing to the same tune?