Burnham meets Trump at UN, praises UK-US ties while avoiding direct AI talks

NEW YORK — Before Andy Burnham’s meeting with Donald Trump, a senior U.K. government figure noted wryly that they were looking out for one thing — whether the U.S. president would claim that Burnham was better than the last guy.

After nearly an hour together in a cramped, low-ceilinged room in the United Nations basement, Trump did exactly that.

The president said U.K.-U.S. relations were “more up now than they were with your last prime minister.” Moments later he put the boot into Keir Starmer again, claiming the ex-PM’s tough rhetoric on Russia had been “too tough.”

That final comment will please Starmer, who welcomed Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Britain after Trump berated him in the Oval Office. But it also shows how far his relationship with Trump fell after his initial attempts to please the president in early 2025.

Burnham had the benefit of a fresh start, and ahead of his first meeting with Trump, British officials insisted he would take a less fawning approach than his predecessor. He could afford to do so, they said, because Trump’s presidency is almost at the midway point and there is less to lose.

Yet there were similarities to Starmer’s early days. Both leaders were on their best behavior, straining not to upset each other in public.

They each gave the other a free pass. Burnham sat expressionless as Trump talked about “fake news” media, while Trump did the same as Burnham talked about Britain’s recent sanctions on West Bank settlements.

Burnham raised the salience of immigration, an issue Trump invoked against Starmer, while Trump even praised Burnham’s “great election win.” (Burnham has not won a general election, merely a special election for the parliamentary seat of Makerfield.)

But some things were different. The splits between the two nations were closer to the surface than in Starmer’s first trip — and even in those cordial words for the cameras, the divides broke into the open.

Trump seized on a Daily Telegraph journalist’s invitation to condemn the long-stalled British plan to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, a strategically vital archipelago in the Indian Ocean, to Mauritius. His words were little surprise on their own, but Burnham’s response — in which he repeatedly refused to rule out reopening the terms of the deal to satisfy Trump’s concerns — formed a genuine shift in U.K. policy.

It remains unclear how any deal could satisfy the demands of Mauritius and the U.S. at the same time.

Then there was the gulf between the two leaders on AI regulation.

Burnham used a breakfast Tuesday in New York with business figures, including Apple’s Tim Cook, to call for an agreed global set of standards on the technology.

Barely an hour later, Trump used his speech at the U.N. General Assembly rostrum to condemn “globalist” attempts to regulate what he called “super intelligence.”

Burnham spent almost an hour in a room with the leader of the free world (and an eight-strong delegation on each side), yet appears not to have raised AI with Trump at all. Downing Street repeatedly refused to say he brought it up and there was no mention of it the official readout.

After it was all over, Burnham used his speech to UNGA to put his appeal to domestic cost-of-living issues on a world stage.

He also announced a “national center for information defense” (with little detail) that would counter disinformation; he portrayed Britain as an “honest broker” on controlling AI. But Britain’s decision not to back a declaration by 22 countries on global AI controls earlier in the week meant it could be sidelined. (Burnham said Britain would look at multiple initiatives, including that one.)

There were other potential wrinkles. Burnham said he would speak in defense of the Falkland Islands, weeks after Trump gave fuel to Argentina’s long-standing claims on their sovereignty by suggesting he would not help if Argentina tried to invade.

Burnham also revealed that he made a plea to Trump about U.S. tariffs and their effect on a particular factory in the northeast of England (he would not say which one). Despite the carve-outs that Starmer won, British industry — especially the automobile sector — is still being hit by Trump’s tariffs.

But so much that could have gone wrong, didn’t — at least for now. Trump did not use the time before the cameras to bring up Britain’s difficult progress toward spending 3.5% of GDP on defense, and did not hit out over the pace of the decision to allow oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.

The newbie prime minister looked buttoned-up during the moment for the cameras with Trump, relaxing only when he was asked about Manchester, where he spent nine years as mayor. The world stage is still new to him.

And in that context, his aides will be chalking the first meeting up overall as a win — just as Starmer’s aides did on the way back from New York two years ago this week. Trump praised Burnham as a natural businessman, a man who “gets it.” The vibes, in this relatively easy opening period, were good.

He will need to maintain the influence if he can. Burnham later said he lobbied Trump to press for an “energy ceasefire” between Ukraine and Russia. Pressure on the U.S. to release more air defense missiles to Ukraine ahead of the winter will only increase.

While Burnham didn’t invite him to the U.K. on Tuesday, they did pave the way for another visit to one of Trump’s golf resorts. “I said I was having second thoughts about playing golf with him, given a recent performance of my own was probably not up to the right standard,” Burnham told broadcasters.

For the man who wasn’t going to bend the knee to Trump, flattery will get him everywhere.