Sir Keir Starmer had been under some pressure to drop Lord Mandelson as his candidate with the president’s team threatening to put serious restrictions on his activities in the US as the incoming team flexed their muscles over the leak of a phone call between Trump and the PM late last year.
The pair did not directly discuss Mandelson, but the warm conversation has helped to smooth out tensions relating to the appointment of the former Labour cabinet minister, The i Paper understands.
“The messages coming from the White House are that they are happy to proceed with Peter’s appointment,” a UK government source said. He is expected to start in early February.
Trump also sent his condolences to the prime minister after the death of his brother Nick, who had cancer and had died on Boxing Day. Starmer thanked Trump “for his kind words and congratulated him on his inauguration,” Downing Street said after the call.
Last week The i Paper revealed former Foreign Secretary David Miliband had been lobbying Starmer’s Downing Street team to become the UK’s ambassador to the US if Mandelson was knocked out of the running.
The president spoke warmly of Prince William after meeting him at the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris last month.
Moreover, although Starmer previously glossed over the Trump campaign’s accusation in October that Labour officials volunteering for Kamala Harris’s Democrats amounted to “foreign interference” in the US election, it was understood to be a continuing bone of tension with Trump’s inner circle based in Mar-a-Lago.
The Trump administration is increasingly using its diplomatic clout. A looming trade war between the US and Colombia appears to have been averted after the Colombian government backed down and agreed to allow US military flights carrying deported migrants to land there.
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