- Starmer, Xi signaled reset in summit talks on Thursday.
- Starmer becomes first British PM to visit China since 2018.
- Latest Western leader engaging in flurry of China diplomacy.
US President Donald Trump said it was dangerous for Britain to be getting into business with Beijing, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer lauded the economic benefits of resetting relations with China during a visit there on Friday.
As Western leaders reel from Trump’s unpredictability, Starmer is the latest to head to China.
In three-hour talks with President Xi Jinping on Thursday, the British leader called for a “more sophisticated relationship” with improved market access, lower tariffs and investment deals while also discussing soccer and Shakespeare.
In Washington, however, replying to questions about the closer ties, Trump said: “Well, it’s very dangerous for them to do that.” He was speaking to reporters ahead of the premiere of the film “Melania” at the Kennedy Centre.
He did not elaborate.
Trump, who plans to travel to China in April, threatened last week to impose tariffs on Canada after Prime Minister Mark Carney struck economic deals with Beijing on a recent visit.
While a Downing Street spokesperson and China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment, British trade department minister Chris Bryant said Trump was “wrong” to say what the UK was doing was dangerous.
“Of course, we enter into our relationship with China with our eyes wide open,” he told the BBC on Friday.
Around the time of Trump’s comments, Starmer told a meeting of the UK-China Business Forum in the Chinese capital that his “very warm” meetings with Xi had provided “real progress”.
Starmer hailed deals on visa-free travel and lower whisky tariffs as “really important access, symbolic of what we’re doing with the relationship”.
“That is the way that we build the mutual trust and respect that is so important,” Starmer said.
Before heading for the financial hub of Shanghai, he met Chinese business leaders, such as Yin Tongyue, chief executive of carmaker Chery, which plans to open a research and development centre for its commercial vehicle arm in the English city of Liverpool, a city official said during Starmer’s visit.
Not choosing between US and China
Starmer’s centre-left Labour government has struggled to deliver on promises of boosting Britain’s economic growth since taking power in July 2024, and he has made improving relations with the world’s second-largest economy a priority.
His visit to China 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 long-standing US allies, Britain among them.
Speaking to reporters on the airplane en route to China, Starmer said Britain could continue to strengthen economic ties with Beijing because of his country’s long history of working closely with the US
“The relationship we have with the United States is one of the closest … we hold,” he said, enumerating areas such as defence, security, intelligence and trade.
Starmer said London would not have to choose between closer ties with the United States or China, highlighting Trump’s September visit to Britain that unveiled £150 billion of US investment into the country.
Washington also received advanced notice of Starmer’s objectives on his China trip, a British government official said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Starmer, who normally avoids criticising Trump, has been more willing to defy the US president in recent weeks.
He urged Trump to apologise for his “frankly appalling” remarks last week that some Nato troops avoided frontline combat and said he would not yield to his demands to annex Greenland.
Tough export market
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is also expected to visit China soon, and Carney was preceded by French President Emmanuel Macron in December, when Xi accompanied him on a rare trip outside Beijing.
“To all world leaders meeting with Xi Jinping: China sells nothing but cheap products and cheap friendships,” the Republican-led US House Foreign Affairs Committee said on X on Thursday.
Before Trump’s comments on the closer ties, his 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.”
Asked if Trump would threaten Britain with tariffs as he did Canada, Lutnick said: “Unless the prime minister of Britain sort of takes on the United States and says very difficult things, I doubt it.”
