Differences remain over AI, Chagos Islands and Iran
Donald Trump told reporters on September 22, 2026 that his relationship with the United Kingdom is “more up” under Prime Minister Andy Burnham than under his predecessor Keir Starmer, at their first face-to-face meeting on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York. At a press appearance alongside Burnham, the US president called the UK leader “a natural businessperson,” said he thought Burnham had “lots of assets on his side” and would be a “great” prime minister.
“I think you’re up. Well they’re more now than they were with your last prime minister, let me put it that way. I think right now, based on my relationship with your prime minister, Andy, I think we’re doing very well,” Trump said.
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 “good connection” they established early on to shore up relations that had “splintered” over Iran. UK officials reacted with relief that the meeting appeared to have gone to plan, though The Guardian reported that signs of difficulty remained across the three issues that brought the two governments into friction: artificial intelligence, the Chagos Islands and the war in Iran.
Burnham had said before the trip that he would urge the US president to de-escalate the Iran conflict, with turmoil in the Middle East pushing up global energy prices and putting the UK economy under intense pressure. In his UN general assembly speech, Trump doubled down on his strategy. He repeated his threat to “annihilate” Iran, adding he would “drive them into hell” if Tehran did not back down and sign a peace deal with the United States.
Asked later whether he had any sympathy with allies feeling pain over the cost of living as a result of his actions, Trump claimed that “as soon as the war is over the prices are going to come way down.” He has previously suggested Iran could agree to a deal after the US midterms in November, and on Monday said “people understand” the need to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, even if that meant price hikes at petrol pumps and in shops.
On artificial intelligence, Burnham was expected to use his own UN speech to push for what he described to business leaders as a “single set of global principles and standards” to guard against rogue AI, saying the issue would be a main focus of the UK’s G20 presidency next year. His ambition for the UK to act as an “honest broker” on the question risks putting him on a collision course with Trump, who has called warnings about AI’s existential threat to humanity a “hoax” and gave a defiant speech in which he intensified his criticism of attempts to regulate the emerging technology.
“The 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’re going to encourage it, not rein it in,” Trump said. “Americans 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 … I’m not going to stifle growth of something that will be bigger than the Industrial Revolution.”
Burnham is also under pressure to sign up to an initiative being led by Finland and Norway — and backed by more than 20 countries — to bar AI companies from launching their models commercially without submitting them for safety testing first.
On the Chagos Islands, Trump was scathing about the UK’s deal to give away sovereignty of the archipelago to Mauritius while paying for a lease of the military base of Diego Garcia.
“I don’t support it. I think it’s terrible. It was a terrible deal. They [Mauritius] all of a sudden say they have ownership. Somebody has ownership that never showed up before after decades and centuries. I think it’s ridiculous,” he said. But he suggested that Burnham may reconsider the deal, saying: “It’s amazing how strategic it is, and I think the prime minister is going to be looking at it.” The Guardian reported that the UK leader nodded and said “yeah” in response.
Trump avoided commenting on the UK’s decision to ban trade with West Bank settlements, leaving it to Burnham to answer the question. He is also understood to have agreed to a request from Burnham to raise the case of imprisoned Hong Kong dissident Jimmy Lai in talks with China’s Xi Jinping on Thursday. British officials in the meeting suggested Lai could live in the UK.
UK officials had approached the meeting with nervousness; Trump had previously dismissed Burnham as “extremely liberal” and described the former mayor of Greater Manchester as the “mayor of a town.” His demeanour toward Burnham on Monday was mostly cordial, The Guardian reported.
In his UN speech, Trump promised there would be peace between Ukraine and Russia “more quickly than people understand.” After talks with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he warned that Starmer’s rhetoric had been “too tough” towards Moscow and that London “needs to be a little bit careful.”
Many of Trump’s talking points were contradicted by UN secretary-general António Guterres, who used his speech to warn about the consequences of international conflict, climate change and AI over the past decade.
“Geopolitical 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,” Guterres said. Without naming Israel, he added that what followed the Hamas attack of October 2023 “was 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.”
Later in the press appearance, Trump hit back at reporters questioning why he has banned some journalists from the White House, leading to a wider boycott by media organisations, claiming he had a “right to clean out fake news.”