Britain’s Burnham to meet Trump and make UN debut after offering UK military support for Saudis
LONDON (AP) — Andy Burnham once said he would refuse to meet Donald Trump.
Now Britain’s prime minister is about to hold his first meeting with the U.S. president, with Ukraine, the risks and opportunities of artificial intelligence and the soaring cost of conflict in the Middle East dominating his agenda.
In a sign of the stark decisions facing the neophyte prime minister who took office just two months ago, Burnham announced Monday that he would send a Royal Air Force plane to help Saudi Arabia repel attacks from Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The U.K. says the plane will refuel Saudi planes during “defensive” missions.
Burnham told reporters en route to New York, where he will meet Tuesday with Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, that he is “acting to secure the interests of Britain and the wider region.”
He said Britain wants to see an end to the conflict in the region “as quickly as possible and we stand ready to play our part.”
The conflict between the Houthis and Yemen’s Saudi-backed government has reignited, with Houthis aiming missile and drone strikes on Saudi Arabia, including one that targeted Riyadh on Saturday before being intercepted. The Houthis also declared a blockade on Saudi shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea, attacking Saudi-linked vessels and oil facilities inside the kingdom, the world’s top oil exporter.
Burnham is set to address the annual gathering of world leaders on Tuesday, setting out his vision of Britain’s place in an increasingly fractured and perilous world.
Burnham’s only other foreign trip since taking office in July was to Kyiv, and he has said he will urge Trump to send interceptor missiles to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses ahead of another winter of war.
The British government also wants to discuss ways to restore free movement of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, largely blocked since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran in February. The closure of the key route has sent oil prices spiking, complicating Burnham’s efforts to jump-start Britain’s sluggish economy and ease the cost of living.
Like many Labour Party politicians, Burnham was strongly critical of Trump in the past. In 2017, Burnham, as the mayor of Greater Manchester, said the president wouldn’t be welcome in the city. Two years later he said he would refuse to meet Trump if he visited.
On Monday he said he would seek “common ground” with Trump, adding that the two men had “found a connection” during two phone calls since Burnham replaced Keir Starmer at the helm of the center-left governing party.
Trump has called Burnham “a nice guy,” but has also recently needled U.K. officials by expressing support for Irish unification and musing about the future of the Falkland Islands that are claimed by both Britain and Argentina.
Starmer went out of his way to flatter Trump, presenting him in the Oval Office in February 2025 with an invitation from King Charles III for an unprecedented second state visit to the U.K.
British officials felt Starmer’s approach was vindicated when the U.K. struck a trade deal with the Trump administration. But Trump soured on Starmer over his refusal to join the Iran war. The president also has repeatedly criticized the U.K.’s immigration and green-energy policies, urging the country to open more of the North Sea up to oil drilling.
Burnham is expected to announce a decision soon about whether to approve new oil and gas fields off Scotland.
U.K. officials also are braced for criticism of Britain’s ban on trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and efforts to regulate big American technology firms.
“Burnham has a bit of a tightrope to walk,” said Olivia O’Sullivan, director of the U.K. in the World program at the Chatham House think tank.
“He’ll want to build rapport. He’ll want to impress upon Trump and the U.S. administration the European line on Ukraine and the need for continued support to Ukraine. And he’ll probably want to use the rest of his time at the U.N. General Assembly to highlight the U.K. government’s ongoing concerns about Gaza” and Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
“But he’ll want to avoid that becoming a bone of contention with the U.S. government,” she said.
Trump’s threats to seize Greenland alarmed the U.K. and other European allies earlier this year, and Burnham was among leaders expressing relief at the announcement of a deal between Greenland, Denmark and the U.S. to bolster the American military presence there but keep the Arctic island under Danish control.
Trump has other, more high-profile, international meetings this week, including one at the White House with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Burnham’s trip comes as middle-sized powers, led most vocally by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, try to forge closer alliances in the face of Trump’s “America first” foreign policy. Burnham’s government wants Britain to be bolder on the world stage, and to restore some of the ties with Europe severed when the U.K. left the European Union in 2020.
At the U.N., Burnham will host a meeting on reviving hopes of a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, alongside Carney, French President Emmanuel Macron, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
In his speech, he said he would set out his vision of the U.K. as an “honest broker” when it comes to balancing the risks and opportunities of AI, which he plans to make the focus of Britain’s presidency of the G20 group of nations in 2027.
“We have obviously the closest of relationships with the U.S. We have that deepening relationship with Europe. But also I’ve spoken to President Xi and we’ve maintained a strong dialogue with China,” he said. “So we are, I think, uniquely positioned to play a leadership role on AI and it’s very clear to me that the G20 presidency gives us that opportunity.”
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