The Observer view: The real special relationship

Last Wednesday, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a Republican, took to the floor of the US Senate to say he was “sick of stupid”. His target was Stephen Miller, the senior advisor to Donald Trump, who two days after the president said the US was going to run Venezuela had claimed it was obvious the US should “have” Greenland too.

Tillis said Miller should get informed or quit his job.

If only the fever that has taken hold of the White House could be soothed by the removal of one advisor. In reality America First is a mood, a viewpoint, sometimes a rage, nowadays a craze for spectacular adventurism. It reaches for territory and riches because it can. It has burned bridges of trust that will take generations to rebuild. Through Trump it controls the world’s largest military and it is forcing America’s allies – Britain urgently among them – to choose between raw power and principle.

In eight days Trump has captured a head of state, anointed his successor, laid claim to Venezuela’s oil, seized five tankers and warned Cuba and Colombia, as well as Greenland, that they could face a US takeover. His version of imperialism is dynamic, candid and fuelled by the brutal logic of an old-fashioned race for resources, chief among them oil, gas and critical minerals.

Like all imperialisms this is arbitrary, acquisitive, illegal and corrupt. That is why Keir Starmer has to choose – between what Britain should stand for and what America has come to stand for. It should not be hard. He should choose instinctively a close alignment with Europe and the rule of law, and a more honest, transactional relationship with the US. So far he has ducked the choice.

Peter Mandelson, Starmer’s former ambassador in Washington, has argued that Trump achieved in a few days through force what would have taken years through diplomacy. This is true. He has dismantled what remained of America’s reputation as a defender of the rules-based international order. He has ended an age of global governance that America built and benefited from for 80 years, and confirmed the arrival of a new age of great power geopolitics that will shrink its markets and raise the risk of wars.

Mandelson says the global order Trump is accused of breaking up in fact started to evaporate two decades ago. There is a kernel of truth here too. The special relationship has long been a charade. To cling to supplicant status in a dance with a mercurial superpower and claim it serves Britain’s long-term interests is delusional. Trump scorns European values but they are our values too. It’s time to stand up for truth, justice, tolerance, democracy and the sovereignty Trump would trample on in Greenland just as Putin has in Ukraine.

There is an argument that cosying up to Trump is the only way Europe can keep America on Ukraine’s side in peace talks with Russia, but this is based on two flimsy notions: that these talks have a realistic chance of success (they don’t); and that Europe cannot show the US there is a cost to breaking its own rules (it can).

Hemispheric geopolitics may be in Trump’s interests, but hemispheric economics are not. Global supply chains are hard-wired into American prosperity and Europe is a part of them. European governments can boycott US products and deny US tech companies access to its customers. Britain can lead the argument that Trump will pay a price for tearing up the rules-based order, which at some level he understands. The World Trade Organization was not on a list of 66 international bodies from which the US withdrew last week.

Trump told the New York Times he felt unconstrained by anything but his own morality. “My own mind is the only thing that can stop me,” he said. This isn’t true. American voters can stop him at home and America’s allies can stop him abroad. America First means the UK has to choose between principle and President Trump. It’s time for Keir Starmer to take a stand.

Photograph by Leon Neal/Getty Images