The Government urgently needs contingency plans to protect the UK from “massive” security risks if Donald Trump is elected US president in November, three of Britain’s most experienced diplomatic figures have warned.
Preparations to help the UK cope if Mr Trump were to end US support for Ukraine and withdraw from Nato must be drawn up in secret to avoid giving him a campaign boost, two ex-Washington ambassadors and a former diplomatic chief told i.
Simon McDonald, head of the Foreign Office until 2020, along with John Kerr and Sir Peter Westmacott, who both ran the UK embassy in Washington, believe a second Trump presidency could remain a strong possibility despite major legal obstacles.
Although the three men have retired from public service, their unsurpassed degree of experience and seniority suggests that many serving diplomats and civil servants will hold similar concerns.
“We should be thinking through the implications of a second Trump presidency, which are massive,” says Lord McDonald, who was head of the Diplomatic Service for five years and is now a crossbench peer. “The impact on the UK is potentially huge.”
When it comes to potential defence and security challenges posed not by an enemy but by a friend, he believes the situation is unprecedented. “There’s nothing in my lifetime that comes close.”
With little more than a year until inauguration day, Lord McDonald argues: “This is proper preparation time and we should use it. In Whitehall, and in the chancelleries of Europe, policymakers should be meeting in private for serious discussions about what it would mean for us… It involves the very top level of government.
“When you have plenty of warning time, the danger is that it becomes wasted time. People think, ‘We can get to that later. We don’t need to put anything in writing, we don’t even need to talk about it, because there will be time.’ I believe that would be fooling ourselves.”
Lord McDonald wants to provoke “stimulus in the debate”, to warn against complacency. Asked how effective the Government’s long-term planning tends to be on issues like this, he replies: “It can be good but it’s not a surefire thing.”
Sir Peter Westmacott, who served as British ambassador to the US from 2012 to 2016, expects No 10 to be “fully alert” about the threats.
“The British government ought to be doing some serious homework,” he says. “There’s not much point in saying, ‘We know he’s a monster, he’s unprincipled, he’s a misogynistic fraud and liar and destroyer of constitutions.’ The reality is: he will be there. We have to find ways of engaging with the US if Trump is elected.
“The question is: how do you deal with it? How do you try and nudge a future Trump administration in directions that are less damaging to not just the British and Western interests, but the cause of rules-based international order?”
John Kerr, who was the UK’s ambassador in Washington between 1995 and 1997 and now sits in the Lords as a crossbencher, says it’s imperative that preparatory work is done confidentially.
The UK must “do nothing now which could be interpreted as interfering in US domestic politics, since this would be exploited by the Trump campaign and so would be acutely counterproductive”, he explains.
All three former diplomats emphasise that choosing the next president is purely a decision for the US public and the UK would never interfere with American democracy. But they underline that it is the duty of the British government to protect its people from any impacts of that decision.
Lord Kerr, who ran the Foreign Office between 1997 and 2002, says the UK should remember there is “safety in numbers”. He advises: “Get together, discreetly until November, with America’s other allies.” France, Germany and many other countries “will also fear the chill wind from Washington”.
Lord McDonald, author of the new book Beyond Britannia, agrees that plans must “remain private all the way until after the election. It’s very difficult to manage that, but in this case it’s very important.”
Ministers will probably never admit to it. Notes or memos may never be released. But if these experts are right, civil servants will already be considering the specific risks. There are plenty of them.
The diplomatic experts
Simon McDonald, Baron McDonald of Salford
- Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 2015 to 2020
- UK ambassador to Germany, 2010 to 2015
Sir Peter Westmacott
- UK ambassador to the US, 2012 to 2016
- UK ambassador to France, 2007 to 2012
- UK ambassador to Turkey, 2002 to 2006
John Kerr, Baron Kerr of Kinlochard
- Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1997 to 2002
- UK ambassador to the US, 1995 to 1997
- UK ambassador to the EU, 1990 to 1995
Risks of Ukraine being left exposed
Should he become president, the biggest and most immediate threat to British security would surely be Mr Trump’s policies towards Russia. Ukraine fears he would appease Vladimir Putin over the Russian leader’s invasion, while the rest of Europe – including the UK – worries this could encourage further aggression on the continent by Moscow.
With opposition to financial and military support for Ukraine growing in the Republican Party, Mr Trump argues that the fighting “has to be stopped”, boasting that he could “end that war in one day”.
He denies that he would force Ukraine to give up land, but he would use “bargaining chips” to secure a deal by “saying things to Putin and saying things to Zelensky that they’re not gonna want to hear”.
Mr Putin himself has welcomed the Republican frontrunner’s promises, saying: “We cannot help but feel happy.”
Sir Peter surmises that Mr Trump may well “throw Ukraine under the bus”.
“When you have plenty of warning time, the danger is that it becomes wasted time”
Lord McDonald
Until now, the US has been Ukraine’s biggest supporter by far, supplying $46.3bn of military aid – way ahead of Germany’s $18.1bn and the UK’s $6.9bn.
“Can the European allies make up the gap?” ponders Lord McDonald. “This will be difficult, it will be expensive, but the stakes are very high.
“I hope and expect that European capitals will be having this discussion individually – and at some point in 2024, that thinking will join up. So if Mr Trump is elected, European Nato [members] will be able to signal plausibly, immediately and strongly that this will not make a difference to the West’s overall support for Ukraine.”
The problem is that Volodymyr Zelensky’s forces are already rationing ammunition. That’s despite the UK donating so many of its own bullets and shells that British stocks are down to “dangerously low levels“, according to a report by MPs in March. Other countries have the same problem.
If US support for the Ukrainian President vanishes, the UK and its other partners will be unable to suddenly produce enough ammo to supply Ukraine and still defend themselves, no matter how much money they pledge. Arms factories simply wouldn’t be able to expand production fast enough.
For that reason, the UK should start increasing capacity now to generate a surplus by the time Mr Trump could be in office, argues Lord McDonald. “That’s very difficult work, so it needs time. Right now, we have that.”
Of course, the Government couldn’t publicly admit that the US tycoon is the reason for ordering such a big armoury. However, because the UK needs to increase its production and stocks anyway, it has a believable cover story.
Ammunition shortages
- An “inability to replenish UK stockpiles” of ammunition was criticised by the Commons Defence Committee last spring. This endangers “not just our ability to resupply Ukraine, but also to counter any threat to our own security”, the MPs warned.
- They concluded: “Western warehouses and stockpiles are not being replenished at the same rate at which stocks are being shipped. Western industrial capacity does not appear to be able to match demand and it is clear that Government intervention is required.”
- Since then, the Ministry of Defence has ordered £410m of frontline battlefield munitions for the British Army from BAE Systems. The firm produces bullets and shells at Washington, near Sunderland, and Glascoed in south-east Wales.
- Defence procurement minister James Cartlidge said in September that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made it “vital we ramp up our sovereign munitions production”.
- However, a promised eight-fold increase in production capability will not be available until 2025, leading to criticism from Labour.
- The situation is difficult across Europe. Nato’s most senior military officer, Admiral Rob Bauer of the Netherlands, cautioned in October: “The bottom of the barrel is now visible.”
Crisis at Nato and across Europe
Would Mr Trump really pull the US out of Nato, which he has called “obsolete” in 2017? US Congress members certainly believe so. That’s why they passed a bill last month preventing presidents from leaving the military alliance without two thirds of the Senate approving.
Even if he can’t exit Nato, reports suggest that he would still reduce American involvement to merely – using his own phrase – a “standby” level.
While eastern European countries like Poland and the Baltic states would be especially alarmed at any suggestion the US would not come to their aid if Russia attacked them, the UK’s armed forces would also be in deep trouble.
“We are more integrated with the US than other European countries are,” explains Sir Peter, author of They Call it Diplomacy. “It’s because of the Five Eyes intelligence relationship, because of the interoperability between our armed forces, because of the way that we train together, the way the Brits have bought an awful lot of American equipment.
“Our ‘independent’, as we call it, nuclear deterrent is very dependent upon US support. All our submarines go off to the Kings Bay base [on the Atlantic coast of Georgia] for maintenance of their missiles. So we would be more affected by any decision by the US to weaken its commitment to Western defence if Trump did become president.
“What do we do about that in the meantime? I used to have these conversations with President Obama, his defence secretary and senior American generals when I was ambassador: the UK has got to step up its own commitment to maintaining proper defensive capabilities.”
He says that a Nato summit in July should become a crucial target for galvanising the alliance. He adds that the UK should consider joining a continental “rapid reaction force”, first proposed in the 2000s but finally going ahead now, and argues that all European nations “have got to realise they must do more”. This would not just improve their armed forces in case they’re attacked, but also show US politicians and voters that they are not shouldering an unfair burden, thereby reducing their desire to leave Nato.
Lord McDonald insists there is no time to lose on defence planning. “This needs to be thought through in the first half of 2024,” he says. “We can’t wait until after November.”
“The UK has got to step up its own commitment to maintaining proper defensive capabilities”
Sir Peter Westmacott
Could UK spy networks also be compromised? In a federal indictment, Mr Trump is accused of hoarding classified files at his Mar-a-Lago estate which included information about the defence capabilities of the US and foreign countries. Prosecutors say unauthorised disclosure of this material could endanger “foreign relations” as well as “human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods”.
Mr Trump denies the charges, but it would be understandable if British security chiefs were worried about him revealing documents that could compromise their agents and techniques. Between the UK and US, “intelligence effort is wholly integrated”, says Lord McDonald. “If something happened in US politics that makes that problematic, that is massive.”
The Foreign Office does not comment on US domestic affairs, though privately officials insist that the special relationship has endured and flourished under both Republican and Democratic parties and that will continue to be the case.
However, a former Trump administration official warned i in August that a second Trump presidency would have “huge security and economic implications for Britain”. Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff at the US Department for Homeland Security, said: “Donald Trump is the single biggest threat to the Western world order.”
EU leaders may still be in denial about the risks he poses. Researchers at the European Council on Foreign Affairs think tank have warned of a widespread belief that Trumpian views – like opposition to Nato – are still “limited to fringe groups” in the Republican Party, rather than accepting they’re a real danger.
The authors added: “The EU, like most complex democracies, has never excelled at long-term planning or strategic hedging. So, it seems that the most likely response to the US presidential election is to worry quietly and hope loudly. Hope, alas, is not a strategy.”
Whoever is foreign secretary come November, Lord Kerr hopes they won’t be as dismissive about a joint European strategy towards Mr Trump as Boris Johnson was when he held the office in 2016.
In the days after Mr Trump’s win, the then foreign secretary snubbed a meeting with concerned EU counterparts, saying it was time that they all “snapped out of general doom and gloom about this election and the collective whingerama”.
Kerr says: “Typical Johnson: analytically wrong and grossly irresponsible. If a UK foreign secretary thinks his European colleagues are likely to get transatlantic relations wrong, his duty is to turn up and put them right.”
“Intelligence effort is wholly integrated. If something happened in US politics that makes that problematic, that is massive.”
Lord McDonald
Why Trump remains such a threat
The legal hurdles that Donald Trump must jump over to reach the White House seem to be growing in number and size all the time, yet the three experts suspect there’s a strong chance he’ll succeed.
Across four separate court cases, he faces 91 charges over the Capitol insurrection, election interference, falsifying business records and hoarding classified documents. But Mr Trump, who denies all wrongdoing, is trying to delay the trials.
Maine followed Colorado last week in banning him from running as a presidential candidate in their states. The validity of these decisions is expected to end up in the Supreme Court, however.
Sir Peter says: “I’ll be surprised if the Supreme Court upholds those bans. And I’ll be very surprised if there are any convictions of Trump for the many offences that he’s charged with this side of the election. Even if there are, I don’t think any of them will disbar him from running.”
Despite his favoured candidates performing badly in the 2022 midterm elections, Trump is now ahead of Joe Biden in opinion polls in most swing states. The upshot is that “a ‘Trump 2’ presidency is not merely a 50:50 possibility, it’s perhaps a 60:40 possibility”, assesses Lord McDonald. Sir Peter is more circumspect, saying “it is very much an open question who wins the election” and “the outcome could go either way”, but does not rule out a Trump victory.
Some people might think: we survived one term of Trump, and now we know what to expect, so he couldn’t be more harmful than last time.
Wrong, say the former diplomats.
“The chances are that a second Trump term would be considerably worse than the first,” says Lord Kerr. “He would not, unlike in 2017, be reined in by some experienced advisers: nearly all of them had resigned or been fired by the end of the first term, and it’s clear his second-term team, already taking shape, would mainly consist of ultra-loyalist far-right idealogues.
“Trump himself, like the Bourbons in 1815, has ‘learned nothing and forgotten nothing’: he still believes in his own infallibility, and would be set on avenging the real or imagined slights of his first term and its aftermath.”
“The chances are that a second Trump term would be considerably worse than the first”
Lord Kerr
Lord McDonald hopes his former colleagues are following the work of right-wing US think tanks, like the America First Policy Institute, to monitor who Mr Trump might pick as his secretary of state.
“There’d be an immediate impact on Middle East policy, on China policy,” he says. “All of that can be thought through in private in advance.” He adds that Europe-wide planning must also involve finance ministries, “because in the end, we’re talking about spending a lot of money”. The ex-president’s advocacy of a universal 10 per cent tariff on imports would also present economic challenges.
On the environment, Mr Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement last time he was in power; Biden overturned this, but it’s expected that Trump would do the same thing again. Only a few weeks ago he denied climate change was a problem, and he may block funding for green power while allowing softer regulation of fossil fuels. Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau warns he could be “a menace” on efforts to prevent global warming.
And there’s another issue. Pundits expect the UK Government to call a general election this spring, but if polling day slips back into summer or even autumn, “but is perfectly possible that our elections will be taking place within weeks of the US presidential elections”, says Sir Peter.
“There will be Trumpery all over the place. There’ll be all sorts of populist nonsense. Trump will be saying whatever he wants to say to get attention and get headlines, and there will be some pressure on UK candidates to react to that.”
Imagine if Mr Trump says something hugely controversial relating to the UK or shares misinformation about the election. British public opinion might swing on how Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer respond to him – and how, in turn, he responds to them.
The very identity of the PM making that call to the president-elect in November could be affected by Donald Trump. How the UK handles him in the months until then could affect things for decades to come.
This article was amended on 4 January to clarify Sir Peter Westmacott’s view on the likelihood of a Trump victory.
Simon McDonald’s book Beyond Britannia: Reshaping UK Foreign Policy (£22, Haus) and Peter Westmacott’s They Call It Diplomacy: Forty Years of Representing Britain Abroad (£9.99, Bloomsbury) are on sale now