It is Donald Trump’s mission to “bring peace to Europe once again”, his vice president has said.
JD Vance also described the UK and US’ relationship as “a beautiful alliance”, during a speech at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.
It comes after Mr Vance and the US president joined a call with Sir Keir Starmer and leaders from across Europe, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to discuss the war in Ukraine.
During the call on Wednesday, the Prime Minister said Mr Trump’s interventions over the Ukraine war have created a “viable” chance of a ceasefire.
Mr Vance met Foreign Secretary David Lammy earlier on Wednesday, where he said they “worked on one of our most important shared security goals in Europe, which is the end of the war between Russia and Ukraine”.
The vice president has previously criticised Europe over its defence funding, with leaked messages from a US Signal group chat showing Mr Vance saying he hated “bailing Europe out”.
He also criticised the UK in February, over a legal case in which a former serviceman who silently prayed outside an abortion clinic was convicted of breaching the safe zone around the centre.
At the time, Mr Vance said that the US’ “very dear friends the United Kingdom” appeared to have seen a “backslide in conscience rights”.
Speaking to American troops stationed in the UK on Wednesday, Mr Vance said: “We’ve got a beautiful country here. We’ve got a beautiful alliance.
“And I think every single one of you know that for over 100 years, we have worked with our friends from the United Kingdom to achieve great victories.
“And if you look at the long sweep of history, every time something big happens for the world, every time a great victory is won for freedom and for peace and for prosperity, it is almost always the Brits and the Americans that do it together, and we win every single time we go to war together.
“You guys know that as well as anybody.
“But it’s not just about going to war, and it’s not just winning when we do.
“When we work together, when we fight together, when we make it clear that we always approach every situation with an open hand – but if things go poorly, we’re willing to do what we have to do, we make it easier to achieve peace and prosperity all over the world.”
He added: “I started the week in a place called Chevening, with the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom (David Lammy), further south in the country, in a county called Kent.
“And what we did is we worked on one of our most important shared security goals in Europe, which is the end of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
“The president of the United States came in six months ago, and I just talked to him right before I came on the stage, and he said very simply that we are going to make it our mission as an administration to bring peace to Europe once again.
“But as you all know, it is impossible to bring peace anywhere, unless the bad guys are also worried that we’ve got a hell of a fine air force, and a hell of a fine military, to back up the peace to begin with.”
