The key takeaway from the release doesn\u2019t relate to the US president, Donald Trump. This is that Mandelson tried to negotiate a severance package worth \u00a3547,201 after being asked to leave his post in Washington. He ended up getting \u00a375,000. But there are details in the documents that will not be welcomed by the US, and the nature of the release will be of concern to a White House already under pressure for its own approach to Epstein.<\/p>\n
Trump has already spent recent weeks publicly criticising Starmer for failing to support him on Iran<\/a>, saying Starmer is no \u201cWinston Churchill\u201d<\/a>. The release of these files may well lend further opportunity for Trump to hit out.<\/p>\n Lack of control<\/p>\n The questions about how much Starmer knew about Mandelson and Epstein arose in the first place after the US government partially released the Epstein files in January. These included email exchanges between Mandelson and Epstein revealing a relationship that extended long after the latter\u2019s conviction. They have also led to a police investigation over communications made between the two men while Mandelson was a government minister. These allegedly relate to sensitive government information rather than anything relating sex offences. <\/p>\n Trump will not like the fact that this release has brought the Epstein files back into the spotlight \u2013 and particularly that it is happening in circumstances beyond his control. <\/p>\n Trump has repeatedly called for the Department of Justice to \u201cmove on\u201d<\/a> from this story, having faced questions about his own relationship with Epstein. He recently attacked CNN journalist Kaitlan Collins<\/a> for not smiling as she asked him questions about the Epstein files, in a clear attempt to distract public attention. <\/p>\n There is a risk that the Mandelson document release will renew pressure on Trump to release the full cache of documents held by the US government \u2013 and that he will seek to divert attention by lashing out again at Starmer.<\/p>\n Trump and Starmer, pictured in September 2025. Unsurprisingly, given that many of these released documents were written for private consumption, they contain some comments that may be embarrassing for the authors and subjects.<\/p>\n In the documents, we can see the UK government reviewed public comments Mandelson made condemning Trump policies prior to his appointment as ambassador, apparently to consider whether they were a problem during the vetting process.<\/p>\n When speaking to students in Hong Kong, Mandelson said: \u201cit\u2019s also necessary to recognise Mr Trump\u2019s behaviour for what it is: he is a bully and mercantilist who thinks that the US will gain in trade only when others are losing\u201d. Trump will likely be annoyed by this attack on his treasured \u201ctariffs\u201d policy. <\/p>\n Crucially, given that Starmer appointed Mandelson despite these comments, these documents also show that the UK government did not object to Mandelson\u2019s view.<\/p>\n London v Washington<\/p>\n The release from the UK will fuel a debate that has begun on the difference between how London and Washington have both responded to the the revelations in the Epstein files. The Trump administration continues to refuse to release its own files in full \u2013 and continues to be accused of covering up Trump\u2019s relationship with Epstein.<\/p>\n The UK government has demonstrated that it is willing to fire people over their relationships with Epstein and that it won\u2019t protect them from police investigation. Now it has shown willingness to release files showing how much the government knew about these relations. This is of course not the full release of files and Starmer insists several key items can\u2019t be released because they are part of an ongoing police investigation, but it still leaves space for criticism of the US. <\/p>\n Trump and his administration will have been hoping that media attention would move on, focusing on the controversial airstrikes on Iran, or continuing ICE raids across US cities. It will not welcome inevitable comparisons between its unwillingness to act on revelations from the Epstein files \u2013 or to keep releasing more files \u2013 and the UK government\u2019s decision to do both. <\/p>\n Crucially, US government officials will be watching for further document releases to see if this situation gets any worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The release of the \u201cMandelson files\u201d comes at a difficult moment in relations between the US and UK.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-470233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Donald](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/file-20260311-57-au44os.jpg\")
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\n Number 10\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/p>\n