{"id":71830,"date":"2025-09-18T17:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T17:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/71830\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T17:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T17:32:07","slug":"trump-says-he-disagrees-with-recognising-palestine-during-starmer-press-conference-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/71830\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says he \u2018disagrees\u2019 with recognising Palestine during Starmer press conference \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

US president Donald Trump<\/a> and British prime minister Keir Starmer<\/a> hailed the renewal of their nations\u2019 \u201cspecial relationship\u201d on Thursday, ending the US leader\u2019s unprecedented second state visit with a show of unity after avoiding several possible pitfalls.<\/p>\n

At a warm press conference when the two leaders glossed over differences on Gaza and wind power to present a united front, Mr Trump reserved his toughest language for Russian president Vladimir Putin<\/a> who he said had \u201clet him down\u201d in his efforts to end what he thought would be an easy war to resolve in Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After two days of his state visit to Britain, which the US leader described as an \u201cexquisite honour\u201d, Mr Trump was in a relaxed mode at the final press conference when Mr Starmer was focused on skirting over potential areas of disagreement.<\/p>\n

The press conference ended without either being tripped up by potential embarrassing subjects, with both batting away questions over the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his ties to Mr Trump and to Mr Starmer\u2019s former ambassador to the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve renewed the special relationship for a new era,\u201d Mr Starmer told reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis partnership today is a signal of our determination to win this race together and to ensure it brings real benefits in jobs, in growth, in lower bills, to put more hard-earned cash in people\u2019s pockets at the end of each month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Trump also described the close ties enjoyed by the two countries, praising Mr Starmer for being a tough negotiator in securing the first tariff deal with the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re forever joined, and we are forever friends and we will always be friends,\u201d Mr Trump said.<\/p>\n

Earlier, some of the leading names in US and UK business were welcomed by the two leaders to unveil a record \u00a3150 billion package of US investment into Britain, part of a wider \u00a3250 billion pound package officials say will benefit both sides.<\/p>\n

Mr Starmer said the deals would \u201clight up the special relationship for years to come\u201d. Mr Trump was equally effusive. \u201cThe ties between our countries are priceless.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done some things that financially are great for both countries … I think it\u2019s an unbreakable bond we have, regardless of what we\u2019re doing today. I think it\u2019s unbreakable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Starmer has pitched Britain as a destination for US investment, aligned to its financial services, tech and energy sectors so it can draw in US capital and build out its infrastructure to grow the economy.<\/p>\n

He was keen to champion deals including a new technology agreement with companies from Microsoft to Nvidia and OpenAI.<\/p>\n

In terms of any differences, it was on foreign affairs where the two were most out of lockstep.<\/p>\n

Mr Starmer, and other European leaders, have been pressing Mr Trump to put more pressure on Mr Putin to end his war against Ukraine; Mr Trump, while criticising the Russian president, failed to mention any further sanctions against Moscow.<\/p>\n

The US leader again expressed frustration that European nations were still buying Russian oil, but said Mr Starmer was not part of their number.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump also repeated his position that he disagreed with countries recognising Palestine \u2013 something Starmer has said Britain will do if Israel fails to relieve suffering in Gaza and reach a ceasefire in its nearly two-year war with Hamas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a disagreement with the prime minister on that score, one of our few disagreements, actually,\u201d Mr Trump said.<\/p>\n

But the two leaders sidestepped questions on Epstein, after both were asked about Mr Starmer\u2019s decisions to sack Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US last week after his close ties with the late financier were released. Mr Trump\u2019s relationship with Epstein has also come under scrutiny.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know him actually,\u201d Mr Trump said in response to a question about Mr Mandelson. \u201cI think the prime minister would be better speaking over that, it was a choice that he made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Starmer repeated his position: \u201cSome information came to light last week which wasn\u2019t available when he was appointed and I made a decision about it, and that\u2019s very clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UK leader also avoided a blow-up on differing UK and US interpretations of free speech, after Mr Trump said Britain had \u201claid the foundations of law, liberty, free speech and individual rights\u201d under its empire and \u201cmust continue to stand for the values … of the English-speaking world\u201d.<\/p>\n

When the final question was answered, a clearly relieved Mr Starmer ushered Mr Trump out of the Great Hall at Chequers before the president leaves to return to Washington. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US president Donald Trump and British prime minister Keir Starmer hailed the renewal of their nations\u2019 \u201cspecial relationship\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,356,18,13,14,3761,6,19,17,71,3857,15098,5446,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,2264,393,384,2263],"class_list":{"0":"post-71830","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-gaza-strip","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-israel","19":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict","20":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","21":"tag-keir-starmer","22":"tag-latest-news","23":"tag-latestnews","24":"tag-main-news","25":"tag-mainnews","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-top-stories","28":"tag-topstories","29":"tag-ukraine-crisis","30":"tag-united-kingdom","31":"tag-united-states","32":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}