Donald Trump has accused Vladimir Putin of letting him down in a joint press conference with Keir Starmer during which the US president piled criticism on his Russian counterpart.
Trump said on Thursday that he had hoped to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine soon after entering office, but that Putin’s actions had prevented him from doing so.
His comments came during an hour-long press conference alongside Starmer which marked the culmination of a two-day state visit during which the president has largely steered clear of several points of tension between the two leaders.
Trump largely avoided criticising the prime minister over Palestinian statehood or attacking Britain on free speech, though he caused awkwardness when he suggested Starmer could bring in the army to deal with irregular migration.
His comments about the Russian president, however, will delight British officials who had hoped to use the unprecedented second state visit to isolate Putin on the world stage.
Putin “has let me down”, Trump said. “He’s killing many people, and he’s losing more people than he’s killing. The Russian soldiers are being killed at a higher rate than the Ukrainian soldiers.”
Trump said he had thought it would be easy to negotiate a truce between Russia and Ukraine “because of my relationship with President Putin … but he’s let me down, he’s really let me down”.
Trump ladled praise on the royal family, Starmer and Britain at the end of a visit full of pomp and pageantry.
“We’re grateful beyond words for the spectacular honour of the state visit yesterday at Windsor Castle, hosted by His Majesty King Charles and Her Majesty Queen Camilla,” he said soon after watching the Red Devil parachute team land on the Chequers lawn.
“These are two fantastic people,” he said, before calling the UK “these beautiful, magnificent isles”.
During a wide-ranging press conference he offered his opinions on: wind power – “a very expensive joke”; the sacking of the US television host Jimmy Kimmel – “not a talented person”; and his predecessor Joe Biden – “never the brightest bulb in the ceiling”.
He dismissed a question about Peter Mandelson, claiming never to have known him, despite the pair having met several times.
He disagreed openly with Starmer’s decision to recognise Palestinian statehood, but only briefly, saying it was “one of our few disagreements”.
He also gave his advice on dealing with small boat arrivals into the UK: “I told the prime minister I would stop it. It doesn’t matter if you call out the military, it doesn’t matter what means you use, but it destroys countries from within.”
To the relief of Downing Street advisers, he entirely avoided answering a question about whether Britain has a problem with free speech, given the recent arrests of Lucy Connolly and Graham Linehan over social media posts.
Starmer’s greatest success during a 90-minute bilateral meeting was arguably to focus the president’s ire on Putin over the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Trump has in the past blamed the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Biden for the war. In recent weeks, however, he has called Russia the aggressor, and he focused his attention entirely on Putin on Thursday.
“I spoke to President Putin about Ukraine, it was the apple of his eye,” he said. “But he would have never done what he did, except that he didn’t respect the leadership of the United States.”
He resisted Starmer’s direct calls, however, for more sanctions on Russia.
The PM said: “It’s only when the president has put pressure on Putin that he’s actually shown any inclination to move.”
Trump responded by drawing attention to European and Indian imports of Russian oil. “If the price of oil comes down, Putin is going to drop out,” he said. “He’s going to have no choice. He’s going to drop out of that war.”
