LONDON: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is “laser-focused” on securing peace in Ukraine after US President Donald Trump suspended military aid to Kyiv, Britain’s deputy prime minister said Tuesday.
Angela Rayner said the pause was “a matter for” the United States and it had not changed Starmer’s approach toward trying to find a suitable ceasefire to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“He’s laser focused on getting peace. He won’t be derailed by announcements,” Rayner told BBC Radio after being asked for her reaction to Trump’s announcement.
She added that the British Labour government was “focused on support for Ukraine” and “bringing the US around the table alongside our European partners and Ukraine.”
“We’ve put our money where our mouth is and stepped up our support for Ukraine through air defense, through military capabilities, and through the military aid we give year upon year,” Rayner said.
Starmer is seeking to tread a fine line between backing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and keeping Trump onside as Europe seeks security guarantees in the event of an end to the war.
“He won’t be bounced by particular announcements overnight,” Rayner told ITV television.
“He will continue to work with our strong allies to get the peace for Ukraine and for Europe,” she added, describing the UK as an “honest broker.”
The UK’s main opposition leader, Kemi Badenoch, said Britain and Europe must “rearm faster” following Trump’s announcement.
“The news overnight that America is halting military aid to Ukraine is profoundly worrying,” she wrote on X.
“It is clear that Britain and Europe must rearm much faster if we want to provide Ukraine with more than just warm words of support.
“We must work to keep America in, and Russia out.”

BEIJING: China on Tuesday swiftly retaliated against fresh US tariffs, announcing 10 percent-15 percent hikes to import levies covering a range of American agricultural and food products, moving the world’s top two economies a step closer toward an all-out trade war.
Beijing also placed twenty five US firms under export and investment restrictions on national security grounds, but refrained from punishing any household names, as it did when it retaliated against the Trump administration’s February 4 tariffs.
Ten of these 25 US firms were targeted by China for selling arms to Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.
China’s latest retaliatory tariffs came as the extra 10 percent duty US President Donald Trump threatened China with last week entered into force at 0501 GMT on March 4, resulting in a cumulative 20 percent tariff in response to what the White House considers Chinese inaction over drug flows.
China has accused the US of fentanyl blackmail and it has some of the toughest anti-drug policies in the world.
Analysts have said Beijing still hoped to negotiate a truce with the Trump administration, but the tit-for-tat retaliatory tariffs threaten to escalate into an all-out trade war between the two economic giants.
The new US tariffs represent an additional hike to preexisting levies on thousands of Chinese goods.
Some of these products bore the brunt of sharply higher US tariffs under former president Joe Biden last year, including a doubling of duties on Chinese semiconductors to 50 percent and a quadrupling of tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to over 100 percent.
The 20 percent tariff will apply to several major US consumer electronics imports from China that were previously untouched, including smartphones, laptops, videogame consoles, smartwatches and speakers and Bluetooth devices.
China responded immediately after the deadline, announcing it will impose an additional 15 percent tariff on US chicken, wheat, corn and cotton and an extra 10 percent levy on US soybeans, sorghum, pork, beef, aquatic products, fruits and vegetables and dairy imports from March. 10, the finance ministry announced in a statement.
“The US’s unilateral tariffs measures seriously violate World Trade Organization rules and undermine the basis for economic and trade cooperation between China and the US,” China’s commerce ministry said in a separate statement.
“China will firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” the statement added.