British Foreign Secretary David Cameron flew to Mar-a-Lago on Monday and a meeting with former President Donald Trump as part of his quest to push senior Republicans to unlock money for Ukraine.
The former Conservative prime minister says victory for Ukraine is “vital for American and European security.”
The former president and presumptive Republican candidate is less enamored with continued U.S. taxpayer-funded support while House of Representatives lawmakers aligned with him are holding up the $60 billion aid package for Kyiv.
AP reports the U.K.’s Foreign Office confirmed the meeting, which was described as “productive” by the British side.
The U.K. government said it’s “standard practice” for government ministers to meet allied nations’ opposition leaders in election years.
The two would have had plenty to talk over.
Lord Cameron called Trump’s proposal during his first presidential campaign to ban Muslims from the U.S. “divisive, stupid and wrong.”
“I think if he came to visit our country I think it’d unite us all against him,” Lord Cameron said at the time, when Trump was not yet elected to high office.
Trump replied by warning he may not have a “very good relationship” with the then prime minister during his presidency.
In his memoirs published in 2019, Lord Cameron further said that he found it “depressing” that Trump could win an election, and that it was due to his “protectionist, xenophobic, misogynistic interventions”.
He was British premier during the U.K.’s 2016 referendum on whether to leave the European Union — a move he opposed but Trump enthusiastically supported.
Lord Cameron resigned after voters rejected his call to remain in the bloc by a healthy margin.
During Lord Cameron’s visit to the U.S., he is expected to speak to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken about support for Ukraine and bringing stability to the Middle East, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said.
