The end of special relations between the United Kingdom and the United States?

The 'special relationship' between the UK and the US has endured for many decades, but Brexit and the weakening of the UK's defense forces mean the UK no longer has the strategic importance it once did. formerly had for the United States. Although a new Trump presidency will present unique challenges to the Labor government, the “special relationship” will likely continue to erode, depending on who wins the 2024 US presidential election. Michael Cox.

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It's hard to remember a time when the upcoming U.S. election generated so much, almost obsessive, international interest. The reasons are clear. On the one hand, America continues to matter more than any other country in the world, so what happens there impacts all of us in ways that no other state does. has. On the other hand, the United States is more polarized today than at any time in recent history, and its allies and partners rightly fear that a less united America will not be a reliable partner in an increasingly dangerous world.

A special relationship?

So what difference will the election result make in the UK? Does it make a difference to London who wins? History often teaches us nothing, but if it does teach us anything, it's how enduring the relationship has been since World War II. Macmillan came to terms with Kennedy. Thatcher stood by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Meanwhile, Tony Blair simply couldn't get enough of his new liberal ally Bill Clinton a decade later. But the liberal Blair had no difficulty standing alongside a neoconservative like GW Bush when it came to Iraq. We also know that Trump loved Boris Johnson and Johnson Trump. But when Johnson was eventually replaced by Rishi Sunak, Sunak's foreign policy team at Number 10 got along perfectly with the Bidens, so much so that by June 2023 Sunak visited Biden at the White House, while a month later Biden spoke on the warmest terms with Sunak in Downing Street.

A number of things have happened over the past ten years that have made the relationship a lot less special.

Cracks in the privileged relationship

Yet there is no denying that the world has moved on since that golden age when Thatcher and Reagan side-by-side waged an ideological war against socialism and Blair and Clinton forged a new “third way” that they hoped would redefine socialism. world. world in the era of globalization.

We must not exaggerate. The “Brits” still remain America's most trusted friends of choice; and there is no doubt how much the UK depends on the US for its security. But a number of things have happened over the past decade that have made the relationship much less special: Brexit, which means Washington no longer has a reliable pro-American partner working within the European Union, and the other, the weakening of the relationship. The British Defense Force thus makes the United Kingdom less important as an ally. As an anonymous American general would have Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said in January 2023 at the Pentagon, many no longer considered the British Army to be one of the world's premier fighting forces.

If Trump's successor rather than Biden's is elected, it could make things decidedly difficult for the new Labor government in the United Kingdom.

The US decision to hastily leave Afghanistan in the fall of 2021 also did little to reassure London that it still held much influence over Washington. As Wallace clearly, a superpower that wasn't willing to stick to something is probably no longer a superpower. It's certainly not a global force, it's just a great power, he added for good measure.

Well before the 2024 elections, these privileged relations were therefore faced with numerous problems. But if Trump's successor rather than Biden's is elected, it could make things decidedly difficult for the UK's new Labor government.

The distance between the two on most issues seems almost insurmountable. As we know, Trump was in favor of Brexit: the Labor Party voted overwhelmingly to remain. When Trump was president and visited the UK, half of all Labor MPs were opposed to him addressing Parliament: Trump was not amused. Labor has a broadly internationalist view, while Trump believes in putting America first and the world second. Like the Democrats, Labor is in favor of more government: Trump is obviously less in favor. Furthermore, while Labor has been consistent in its opposition to Putin's war in Ukraine, Trump has not only wavered when it comes to Ukraine, but with his running mate JD Vance has made it clear that he wants to put a end to the war in Ukraine. double the fast time to conditions which, by definition, favor Russia

Labor's recent visits across the Atlantic have also done little to improve relations with Trump. Starmer could argue that his government “can maintain good relations” with a Republican president in the White House. But one suspects that Trump will not forget the fact that the current British Foreign Secretary, David Lamyonce called him a “racist” and a “dangerous clown.” Then, as if to make matters even more complicated, just two to three weeks before the election we had the decidedly bizarre spectacle of Team Trump calling on the Labor government (in their own words) to “illegal foreign interference» in the American elections. Yet this may not be Labor's biggest problem.

Whoever wins in November, whoever sits in the White House will have far more problems than the UK.

The loss of the strategic importance of the United Kingdom compared to the United States

Perhaps the biggest problem is not just Trump, but rather how the UK is now perceived in the US more generally. Sentiment can only take a country so far, and the United States currently has much more to do than worry about its relationship with a country like the United Kingdom, which, in the famous words of Douglas Hurd pronounced in 1993, no longer strikes. above its weight. But this is no longer the case, it seems.

Indeed, whoever wins in November, whoever sits in the White House will have far more problems than the United Kingdom. With the rise of China, Russia's continued war in Ukraine, and the Middle East flaring up, the so-called special relationship now resembles dead beer. As Lord Palmerston once observed, states have neither permanent allies nor perpetual enemies, but only interests. And at this particular moment in history, when both Democrats and Republicans are beginning to prioritize America's own interests, one suspects that what is said in London, or elsewhere in Europe, for that matter, will have a certain weight, but much less than that. used to do.

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All articles published on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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