As Trump looms large, can Keir Starmer save the world?

RIO DE JANEIRO — As progressives around the world are washed away by a rising tide of populism, one man stands as the center left’s great hope. Step forward Keir Starmer.
A pragmatist who owes his victory at July’s U.K. general election as much to a collapse in the traditional right as to his own powers of persuasion, the British prime minister may seem an unlikely resistance leader.
But the Labour Party chief arrives in Rio for the latest gathering of the G20 group of leading economies as the most powerful politician of his ilk. He is attending a summit that will likely be characterized by coded discussions on how to shield economies, Ukraine and climate action from another round of Donald Trump in the White House.
The meeting in Brazil is almost certainly outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden’s last dance on the world stage. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government has collapsed. The far right is on the rise in Emmanuel Macron’s France. In Canada, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals look to be on the way out, and polls predict a similar fate for Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party in Australia.
Progressives are now pinning their hopes on Starmer restraining Trump’s darkest and most chaotic instincts where they touch on international affairs — even if he’ll be treading the most unstable of tightropes while trying not to blow up Britain’s relations with the White House.
“Liberal democracy is in enormous peril,” said Matt Bennett, executive vice president for the Third Way think tank. He argued that many democrats are now “lame ducks,” as Trump joins Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi in a sliding scale of “right-wing autocrats controlling major nations, armies and economies.”
“That leaves Keir Starmer almost alone as the leader of a powerful nation who is committed to democracy. This is a huge responsibility,” Bennett said. 
“The U.K. can serve as a bulwark against the march of right-wing populism. He should push back on Trump where necessary and show the world how it’s done. It’s vital — but it’s going to be a lonely fight.”
Starmer will be well aware that the forces claiming his more natural global allies are breathing down his neck too.
His rise to power in July was fueled by the public’s mass rejection of the Conservatives after 14 years of incumbency and the insurgency of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party, which split the right-wing vote. 
World leaders will be at pains not to utter Trump’s name in a negative light, but it’s clear he will loom large over Rio.
They’ll be at the G20 on Tuesday when the grinding war in Ukraine enters its 1,000th day. Downing Street said Starmer would use the summit to call on allies to “step up their support” or “face unfathomable consequences if Putin wins.” The PM will also place economic cooperation and the climate crisis at the heart of his discussions.
Asked by POLITICO on the plane to Rio, Starmer insisted Trump’s election is not the death knell for the environment, describing tackling climate change as both an “obligation which is on all of us to play our part” and a great economic opportunity. 
Starmer will also be seeking a bilateral meeting with Biden to encourage him to give Ukraine a $20 billion loan before Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, the Telegraph reported. And the PM is expected to push for authorization for Kyiv to fire long-range Storm Shadow missiles deep into Russian territory.
But any action the outgoing president takes in his lame duck phase won’t “Trump proof” the world for long.
One U.K. Cabinet minister, who like others in this piece was granted anonymity to discuss international affairs candidly, insisted Britain is well-placed to have the president-elect’s ear.
“He loves Britain, his mom is from [the Scottish island of ] Lewis and he’s got his golf courses,” the senior minister said. When it comes to Britain’s European neighbors France and Germany, the Starmer ally said of Trump, “he doesn’t have those connections to them.”
Yet even in the most cordial of times there’s only so much Britain alone can do to shape the global superpower — let alone when it has such a mercurial protectionist at the helm. Starmer will likely look to form hodgepodge alliances with leaders of all stripes around the world on matters of common interest.
“I don’t think it does fall to Keir Starmer to be the only one standing up,” said Claire Ainsley, who runs the D.C.-based Progressive Policy Institute think tank.
Ainsley, a former Starmer adviser, argued Britain has allies on the center right as well as the left who also want to ease the climate crisis and defend Ukraine so “it will be much more about the pragmatic, realpolitik of what is in each nation’s strategic national interest and therefore, where can you find alliances and allyship.”
“And you might find that in surprising places,” she added.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei may be a chainsaw-wielding libertarian, but he is a steadfast supporter of Ukraine. Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would probably be viewed by the U.K. as too close to Russia, but has made tackling climate change a priority. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni may be way out on the right, but Starmer sees her as an ally in tackling illegal migration.
Cosying up to Trump is a harder sell domestically.
The past and future president is deeply unpopular across the U.K. — YouGov polling the day after the Nov. 5 election suggested 57 percent of Brits were unhappy with the result, compared to 20 percent who were content. And Labour supporters were among the most likely to oppose Trump. 
Brits took to the streets in their droves when Trump visited the U.K. during his last presidency. Then in opposition, many Labour MPs were happy to tweet their revulsion — including current Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who’s now in a sticky situation with the Republicans over his remarks.
Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, the outgoing chair of the U.S. foreign relations committee, hailed Labour’s win as a “good shift” towards a government that looks after working people, bucking the trend of populist right insurgency.
However, speaking to POLITICO on a visit to London, he warned that Democrats had been scuppered by a failure “to connect with the voters that traditionally support our party” on living standards and immigration. Labour, he warned Starmer, would “have to be more sophisticated” in defending its position. “I would not abandon your values,” Cardin said.
The British PM is already aware of the importance Trump places on personal communication. Aided by his highly respected Washington ambassador Karen Pierce, Starmer was among the first world leaders to secure a phone call with Trump after his victory, sending his “hearty congratulations.” He was also one of the few foreign leaders to secure a call with Trump shortly after his first assassination attempt.
“He’s got to try and influence him somehow,” said a second, exasperated government minister of Starmer’s future dealing with Trump.
Making the argument that colleagues in parliament had to be “grown ups,” and accept the importance of a continued dialogue between the White House and No. 10, the second minister said: “I’ve had meetings with all sorts of people I’d rather not have but it’s part of governing.”
Starmer has also signalled his desire to go further in building ties with Europe after the damage to relations of Brexit, paying a recent, high-profile visit to Macron. “That gives you a good steer on where it’s going,” the minister said of the trip to Paris. 
Wins for the U.K. economy may come at the cost of concessions to Brussels, but could also serve as a bulwark against turbulence from Trump if he the U.S. president-elect goes through with his “America first” threats to impose heavy import tariffs. 
But both ministers signalled that Labour had no appetite in engaging in a trade war with the U.S. “Then it just spirals and escalates,” the second government minister said.
The PM has also been shifting his own language around his domestic agenda somewhat, saying in the days after Trump’s victory that the economy and border control are “the two key priorities.”
The sharpening of tone on these two hot topics when Starmer spoke to reporters on the way to the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan this month could be seen as a reflection on No. 10’s view of the Democrats’ failure to make a strong case to voters. It may also be seen as an aligning of language with Trump. 
So far Starmer has focused on his own agenda when asked about Trump’s positions, highlighting Britain’s strong support for Ukraine and track record on the climate crisis.
Rather than snub the summit in Baku as many international allies did, Starmer sought to show leadership on the environment by announcing an even more ambitious aim for reducing carbon emissions by 2035 — in stark contrast to the impending Trump approach.
But there will be moves designed to please the president-elect too. With one eye on Trump railing at NATO allies for falling behind on spending, Starmer is expected to set out a timeline for increasing U.K. defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP in the spring. 
Appealing to “The Donald’s” ego via his high regard for Britain’s royal family is another tool at Starmer’s disposal. 
A former U.K. government official who worked on the last Trump visits said: “We couldn’t get him interested in anything except the [late] Queen [Elizabeth II]. There was no point showing him such and such a big gun because he’d have a bigger one.”
Few are under any illusion Britain’s attempts to leaven Trump’s global impact will be a smooth ride — not least given his new alliance with X boss Elon Musk, who has been openly hostile to Starmer’s government, and Labour’s vastly different policy platform to the Republicans.
Britain under Starmer is also seeking to forge new ties with Trump’s great foe, China. Starmer will have the first bilateral meeting with President Xi Jinping for a British prime minister in more than six years when they meet in Rio on Monday.
“But on defense and security, if it’s a choice between the U.S. and China — it’s not a choice,” the Cabinet minister said, pointing to how intertwined the two states are on these fronts.
They acknowledged “there will be fireworks, there will be drama” during the Trump presidency but said the government should be mindful there’s a difference between “rhetoric and reality.”
Even rhetoric can be pretty impactful, however. 
Paul Harrison was then-Prime Minister Theresa May’s press secretary when Trump gave an incendiary interview to the Sun arguing her Brexit plans would “probably kill” a U.S.-U.K. trade deal just as she was preparing to host him in Britain. Despite this, Harrison believes Trump can be won round, with his climb down of sorts when president and PM met shortly afterwards an example.
“The act of persuasion with him is difficult, and it has to be done very carefully,” Harris said, and Starmer “has a few, though not many, cards to play.”
For one, Trump respects “political strength.” Starmer won a huge Commons majority in July and isn’t required to hold another general election until August 2029 — a year after the next presidential vote.
“It’s helpful to be able to give a perspective on how events will play for Trump politically, so being able to say, actually, Mr. President, our perspective is that your political goals will be better delivered by this alternate course of action,” Harrison said. 
Labour seems to be taking this advice, with some urging Starmer to sell a narrative to Trump that it would look weak to allow Putin to triumph too overtly in Ukraine.
“Everything now is about how do we sell it to Donald Trump,” one senior MP said. “We have to convince him that he can’t be the man to allow a surrender — that he could get the Nobel Peace Prize.”
No one’s suggesting Starmer is likely to be garlanded with such an honor — but there are plenty of moderates the world over who would be vastly grateful if he tempered Trump even a little.
Emilio Casalicchio contributed reporting from Washington and Esther Webber and Dan Bloom from London.