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Sir Keir Starmer sent his most senior aide and national security adviser to meet senior members of Donald Trump's team earlier this month, as the UK works to build closer ties with the incoming administration.
The Prime Minister sent Morgan McSweeney, the Downing Street chief of staff, and Jonathan Powell, his national security adviser (NSA), to Florida and Washington for high-level talks.
The couple met Susie Wiles, who would later become White House chief of staff Trump's Inauguration next month, with Mike Waltz, the next president-elect as the NSA.
Talks focused on the UK-US trade, Ukraine, the Middle East and China, according to Downing Street officials. They also covered plans for Starmer to visit Washington shortly after Trump was sworn in as president on January 20.
Wiles hosted Trump's 2024 campaign this year, and was praised by the president-elect on stage in his victory speech in November. He is also the first appointee of the new administration to be unveiled.
Waltz, a Florida congressman and former US Special Forces officer, is a China hawk and has been hailed as a champion of “peace through force”.
Starmer's efforts to foster closer ties with the US, which included dining with Trump over the summer and speaking to the president-elect by phone on Wednesday, have faced several potential hurdles.
This includes the UK's agreement to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in exchange for long-term control of a joint US-UK military base.
It is not clear whether the Chagos Islands arrangement shown in talks with Starmer's aides, or on Wednesday's phone call. The draft agreement was drawn up by Starmer and the former prime minister of Mauritius, but fell into disarray after the election of his successor.
The proposed deal, designed to secure the future of a key US military base in Diego Garcia, has also sparked fierce criticism from Trump's top allies, raising the prospect that he may want to block the deal once in office.
Powell, a former Downing Street chief of staff to Sir Tony Blair, helped broker the deal after Starmer made him special envoy for talks on the Chagos Islands, shortly before he was appointed to the UK's NSA.
In their phone call on Wednesday, Starmer congratulated the US president-elect on the latest team appointments, while Trump discussed meeting the Prince of Wales in Paris earlier this month, according to Number 10.
The pair also discussed Ukraine and the Middle East. “They both agreed on their ambition to strengthen the close and historic relationship between the UK and the US,” added Downing Street. “They looked forward to working together on shared priorities, including international security and delivering economic growth and prosperity.”
Starmer was not invited to Trump's inauguration in January, despite the president-elect breaking with historic convention by inviting several foreign leaders to attend.
Trump made the unusual move of extending an invitation to Chinese President Xi Jinping last week, a sign that he intends to resume high-level negotiations between the two men during his first term.
McSweeney and Powell's transatlantic journey, which began on December 2, was first reported by The Telegraph newspaper.