{"id":779412,"date":"2026-09-23T00:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T00:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/779412\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T00:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T00:12:12","slug":"trump-praises-relations-with-burnham-despite-tensions-over-ai-and-iran-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/779412\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump praises relations with Burnham despite tensions over AI and Iran | Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has asserted his relationship with the UK is \u201cmore up\u201d with Andy Burnham<\/a> than under Keir Starmer despite tensions between the two countries on a range of thorny issues including regulation of artificial intelligence, the Chagos islands and the war in Iran.<\/p>\n

At their first face-to-face meeting, the US president praised Burnham, who sat nervously alongside him, as a \u201cnatural businessperson\u201d, saying he thought he had \u201clots of assets on his side\u201d and would be a \u201cgreat\u201d prime minister.<\/p>\n

Burnham, who was joined in the talks by Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, and Jonathan Powell, his national security adviser, said he and Trump had built on the \u201cgood connection\u201d they established early on, in an effort to shore up relations which had splintered over Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

UK officials reacted with relief that the talks appeared to have gone according to plan. But despite the warm words at the UN general assembly in New York, there were still signs of difficulties ahead.<\/p>\n

On his way to the US, Burnham had revealed he would urge the US president to de-escalate the Iran conflict, with turmoil in the Middle East pushing up global energy prices, putting the UK economy under intense pressure.<\/p>\n

Much of the summit has been dominated by geopolitical turbulence, with Trump using his speech to double down on his strategy. The president repeated his threat to \u201cannihilate\u201d Iran, adding he would \u201cdrive them into hell\u201d if they did not back down and sign a peace deal with the US.<\/p>\n

\"GuardianGuardian political editor asks Trump about Iran war economic consequences \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Asked later whether he had any sympathy with allies which were feeling pain over the cost of living as a result of his actions, Trump claimed that \u201cas soon as the war is over the prices are going to come way down\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump, who has suggested Iran could agree to a deal after the US midterms in November, said \u201cpeople understand\u201d the need to prevent Tehran obtaining a nuclear weapon, even if that meant price hikes at the petrol pumps and in shops.<\/p>\n

In his own UN speech, Burnham was expected to push for greater international control over AI. He revealed to business leaders that he wants a \u201csingle set of global principles and standards\u201d to guard against rogue AI, saying the issue would be a main focus of the UK\u2019s G20 presidency next year.<\/p>\n

But Burnham\u2019s ambition for the UK to be an \u201chonest broker\u201d between countries in that could set him on a collision course with Trump, who has called warnings about AI\u2019s existential threat to humanity a \u201choax\u201d and gave a defiant speech in which he intensified his criticism of attempts to regulate the emerging technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control for the artificial intelligence being spoken of so much now. We\u2019re going to encourage it, not rein it in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans have never been a nation that retreats from a frontier or shrinks from a challenge, no matter how great or how daunting that challenge may be \u2026 I\u2019m \u2060not going to stifle growth of something that will be bigger than \u200cthe Industrial Revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burnham is also under pressure to sign up to an initiative being led by Finland and Norway \u2013 and backed by more than 20 countries \u2013 to bar AI companies from launching their models commercially without submitting them for safety testing first, amid growing concerns over the risks.<\/p>\n

In another schism between the two countries, Trump was scathing about the UK\u2019s deal to give away sovereignty of the Chagos Islands<\/a> to Mauritius, while paying for a lease of the military base of Diego Garcia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t support it. I think it\u2019s terrible. It was a terrible deal. [Mauritius] all of a sudden say they have ownership. Somebody has ownership that never showed up before after decades and centuries. I think it\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But he suggested that Burnham may reconsider the deal. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing how strategic it is, and I think the prime minister is going to be looking at it,\u201d he said, to which the UK leader nodded and said \u201cyeah\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, Trump avoided commenting on the UK\u2019s decision to ban trade with West Bank settlements, leaving it to the prime minister to answer the question. He is also understood to have agreed to a request from Burnham to bring up the case of imprisoned Hong Kong dissident Jimmy Lai in talks with China\u2019s Xi Jinping on Thursday. British officials in the meeting suggested Lai could live in the UK.<\/p>\n

UK officials had been somewhat nervous about the meeting, as Trump had previously dismissed Burnham as \u201cextremely liberal\u201d and described the former mayor of Greater Manchester as the \u201cmayor of a town\u201d. However, his demeanour towards Burnham was mostly cordial.<\/p>\n

But it appeared to have gone to plan for both sides, with Trump praising US-UK relations, saying: \u201cI think you\u2019re up. Well, they\u2019re more now than they were with your last prime minister, let me put it that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think right now, based on my relationship with your prime minister, Andy, I think we\u2019re doing very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later in the press conference, Trump hit back at reporters questioning why he has banned some journalists from the White House, leading to a wider boycott by media organisations. The president claimed he had a \u201cright to clean out fake news\u201d.<\/p>\n

In his UN speech, Trump promised there would be peace between Ukraine and Russia \u201cmore quickly than people understand\u201d. After talks with Ukraine\u2019s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he warned that Starmer\u2019s rhetoric had been \u201ctoo tough\u201d towards Moscow and that London \u201cneeds to be a little bit careful\u201d.<\/p>\n

Many of Trump\u2019s talking points were contradicted, however, by the UN secretary-general Ant\u00f3nio Guterres, who used his speech to warn about the consequences of international conflict, climate change and AI over the past decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeopolitical divides have deepened. Inequalities have intensified. Trust has frayed. The climate crisis went from distant warning to daily reality. And artificial intelligence moved at a speed that has blindsided even those who created it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Without naming Israel, he added that what followed the Hamas attack of October 2023 \u201cwas an onslaught on Palestinians in Gaza, with a scale of killing and destruction unlike anything I have witnessed in all my years as secretary-general\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has asserted his relationship with the UK is \u201cmore up\u201d with Andy Burnham than under Keir…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-779412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779412","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=779412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}