Has Andy Burnham stopped caring what Donald Trump thinks?

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

This is a Global Production.

Emily Maitlis (0:04)

Is there something going on now with Burnham's new administration, where he just doesn't actually feel the need to ask permission?

Jon Healey (0:14)

I said to him, have we broken with America now, foreign policy? And he just, he had a twinkle in his eye when he said this. He said, no, Jon, we haven't broken with America, we're just differentiating.

Emily Maitlis (0:25)

Does Trump actually feel relieved by the position that the UK and other governments have taken?

Jon Healey (0:33)

It was a good political operation.

SPEAKER_4 (0:36)

Well, I would say that the president has not commented on this, as I said, neither have I at this point. We were made aware that they were going to make this decision.

We heard their argument as to why. But look, we share the goal of stability. We don't want to see some uptick in violence or an uptick in conflict or tensions in the West Bank. At a very tenuous time in the region, there's always tenuous times. But beyond that, I don't think, as at this moment, we don't have any further comment on the UK decision that I think was announced just a few hours ago.

Emily Maitlis (1:08)

That was Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, telling us bluntly that they don't really mind what Andy Burnham has decided to do in his sanctions against Israel. Presumably, he's speaking for Trump there, too.

Jon Healey (1:23)

So, is the anger being felt about what is happening in the West Bank as keenly felt in America as it is in Europe? And say it quietly, does Donald Trump approve of what the British have done? Welcome to The News Agents.

It's Jon.

Emily Maitlis (1:47)

It's Maitlis. And I think it's fair to say that yesterday, around this time, we were expecting the actions of the UK government to have serious repercussions with Donald Trump. We thought there might be a bust up. We thought there might be an incoming row. And Jon is checking his truth social account on a minute lead basis. But so far there has not been the outrage or the slap down that we were expecting over those sanctions on Israel. Now, Israel itself is furious. We know that the Foreign Minister Gideon Sarr has announced the closure of the British Consulate in Jerusalem. He's put countermeasures in response to new sanctions. He's called it anti-Israel. And he's also talking about the termination of British activities, trained Palestinian authority forces in Judea and Samaria, and he's denying entry to 12 British elected officials. Jeremy Corbyn, Zara Sultana, top the list. You can probably work out the sort of flavor of the others.

Jon Healey (2:53)

I think it was pretty unlikely they were going to be taking their holidays in Eilat anyway.

Emily Maitlis (2:57)

We don't think they were heading off to Tel Aviv in the near future. The point is that Israel's isle was kind of bedded in.

But Trump's isle was expected and hasn't come. So today on the episode, we're asking two questions. Does Trump actually feel relieved by the position that the UK and other governments have taken? Is there something going on now with Burnham's new administration where he just doesn't actually feel the need to ask permission, in the same sense that British governments have done of their American presidents for decades and decades?

Jon Healey (3:42)

Yeah, it really is interesting what's happening with British foreign policy that's taking place now. I mean, look, when we recorded yesterday, I think we did anticipate that there was going to be some kind of thermonuclear blast from Donald Trump at Britain for this latest egregious act that the United Kingdom had taken without US authority. The reason we thought that was that Donald Trump's ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, former kind of presidential candidate back in the day for the Republican Party had come out and kind of warned, talked about Jew hate in Britain and the anti-Semitism that was right there. Well, it looks like Mike Huckabee was acting without the authority of Trump and that they were blindsided.

Emily Maitlis (4:24)

I mean, he also threatened, do you remember, you talked about this yesterday, he also threatened that Florida might take unilateral action against UK, that Florida would stop doing business with the UK because it broke Florida laws to sanction Israel.

Jon Healey (4:37)

Exactly. So, you know, Mike Huckabee went way over the top and also had gone way off the reservation in making those remarks. But the very muted response you got from Marco Rubio was interesting in telling it itself.

This morning, Emily, I bumped into someone on the Tube who is a very, very senior, former Foreign Office Mandarin. And, you know, we discussed in our kind of chat early morning about what we were going to talk about today. And I said to him, have we broken with America now on foreign policy? And he just he had a twinkle in his eye when he said this. He said, no, Jon, we haven't broken with America. We're just differentiating ourselves from America. And I thought that sounded like a perfect yes minister cameo response. And I think he said it semi ironically. I, you know, I'm hamming up the Mandarin's response. But I think that's how they feel, that they feel that over Greenland, over Ukraine, over all manner of different things, you know, Britain has been able to say, I'm sorry, no, don't agree with this. And so, you know, you do have a position now where Britain is not saying, oh, God, we've got to go along with everything. You don't want to start a fight with Trump, but you do want to say, quietly, we disagree and we're going to pursue a slightly different policy.