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Donald Trump has warned the UK against doing business with China, just hours after Keir Starmer lauded the economic relationship during a landmark visit to Beijing.
The US president said it was “very dangerous” for the UK to pursue closer ties with the rival superpower as the prime minister’s three-hour talks with leader Xi Jinping underlined a thaw in previously strained relations.
Starmer, the first British prime minister to travel to Beijing in eight years, promised a “more sophisticated” relationship with China, as he secured improved market access, lower tariffs and investment deals.
But in Washington, replying to questions about Starmer’s attempts at an economic reset, Trump said: “Well, it’s very dangerous for them to do that.”
His remarks could create nerves inside Downing Street given the US president’s unpredictability and long-held hostility towards China. One official said the US had been aware of the trip and the UK’s objectives in advance.
After his talks with Xi at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday, Starmer said the UK’s relationship with China was in a “good, strong place”, and that his meetings had provided “just the level of engagement that we hoped for”.
“We warmly engaged and made some real progress, actually, because the UK has got a huge amount to offer,” he told a meeting of the UK-China Business Forum at the Bank of China in Beijing.
The chair of the British Chamber of Commerce in China, Chris Torrens, said Starmer’s visit to Beijing was “successful”, telling the BBC: “It makes sense for UK to be looking to China, it’s one of its larger trading partners.”
The UK prime minister was later due to travel to Shanghai before leaving for Tokyo to meet his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi for a working dinner.
He is just the latest western leader to have visited Beijing in recent weeks looking to build ties with the world’s second largest economy, and to hedge against an unpredictable US president.
It comes amid Trump’s on-off threats of trade tariffs and pledges to grab control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, which have rattled longstanding US allies including the UK.
Earlier this week, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Canada if it went through with economic deals struck with China on a recent visit to Beijing by its prime minister, Mark Carney.
After commenting on the UK’s engagement with Beijing, Trump said it was “even more dangerous, I think, for Canada. Canada is not doing well. They’re doing very poorly, and you can’t look at China as the answer.”
However, the US president, who is expected to visit Beijing himself in April, and whose country is China’s biggest single trading partner, added: “President Xi is a friend of mine, I know him very well.”
Before his trip to Beijing, Starmer said in an interview with Bloomberg that Britain would not have to choose between the US and China, saying the country could strengthen economic ties with Beijing without angering Trump or harming relations with Washington.
“We’ve got very close relations with the US – of course, we want to – and we will maintain that business, alongside security and defence,” he said.
Before Trump’s comments, US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said it was unlikely that Starmer’s efforts with China would pay off.
“The Chinese are the greatest exporters and they are very, very difficult when you’re trying to export to them,” he told reporters. “So good luck if the British are trying to export to China ... it’s just unlikely.”
He played down the prospect of Trump threatening Britain with tariffs as he did Canada, adding: “Unless the prime minister of Britain sort of takes on the United States and says very difficult things, I doubt it.”
