The Scene
Ambassador Karen Pierce is an unusual Washington figure: a European diplomat who has maintained close ties to President-elect Donald Trump’s circle, and who — as her term appears to approach its end — is trying to give Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer traction with the incoming Republican administration.
Pierce offered a glimpse of her pitch during an interview Wednesday at her office at the British embassy in Washington, beside a poster advertising the Royal Air Force (“Peace through Strength. Lots of strength.”):
“Starmer got a very clear majority. And that helps. He’s obviously a winner,” she said. “Other political leaders respect the fact that it was a clear victory and respect the fact that Starmer will probably be there for the foreseeable future.”
Pierce also offered her assessment of some early Trump moves. Incoming National Security Adviser Mike Waltz is a “fine public servant,” she said. “I have a lot of respect for Susie Wiles, who’s an excellent operator, very courteous, very efficient.”
And she reacted to rumors in London that a former aide to ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair with a deep background in trade policy, Peter Mandelson, might soon replace her, noting that the government has not chosen her successor and joking that she will have to be “dragged out by my fingernails.”
Q&A
You’re obviously too capable and experienced a diplomat for me to trick you into making news, but I am curious. You’ve been on TV, you’re putting yourself out there sending a message. Do you feel like it’s the only way to communicate with the president-elect?
No, no, no, no, no, it’s one way of communicating with the American people, and we try to be even handed. So, you know, if we do Fox, we do Morning Joe, we do Margaret on Face the Nation. We just try and do as many outlets that reach a lot of people.
You’re pretty unusual as a diplomat who had, I think, pretty good relationships across Trump’s orbit during his last term. What are you trying to get through to his team about Britain’s posture toward the US and the world right now?
It’s long-standing embassy practice to know really well anybody who might be coming into a future administration. So, we really are assiduous about that. And because in America you often have this revolving door just because someone leaves in four years time, they might be back. So, we make a real point of knowing both sides or in this case, three sides, because there was Harris as well.
We’re dealing with the Biden administration on current crises, and we’re getting to know people who might be in the Trump administration where we don’t know them already. But in terms of policy, it’s one president at a time.
You now represent one of the diminishing number of progressive governments in the world, which Prime Minister Starmer has cast as a bulwark against the rising populist tide. How is this British government’s relationship with the incoming American government going to work? Are you gonna be you and Olaf Scholz over in the corner while he talks to Viktor Orbán?
I shouldn’t think so. The first thing to say is, Starmer got a very clear majority. And that helps. He’s obviously a winner. I don’t know what the exact number will be, but it’s not fanciful for the new British government to be looking at at least 10 years. And that means you can plan. And I think other political leaders respect the fact that it was a clear victory and respect the fact that Starmer will probably be there for the foreseeable future.
What do you read from from Trump’s early announcements?
He’s obviously appointing people he believes he can work, like Mike Waltz. He is an Afghanistan vet, and I used to be in Afghanistan. I’ve had a lot of conversations with him. He’s a very fine public servant. I have a lot of respect for Susie Wiles, who’s an excellent operator, very courteous, very efficient.
It’s all part of our outreach. We make it our business to know anybody who might have an important role that one day might affect something we need to do.
Can Britain be carved out from tariffs?
Keir Starmer has made it clear he wants to reset with the EU, but that it’s not a zero-sum game. There are lots of things we want to talk to the Americans about on trade, on tech.
What about the Brexit dream of a big bilateral trade deal with the US?
Those people who think it’s not the right time for a big market access free trade agreement, — all singing all dancing — there’s now a bigger economic security agenda to talk about. … There’s tech and regulation to talk about. It’s not just about market access, and market access, in any case, is very fiendish to negotiate.
As far as the tariffs go, as a free-trading country that’s been a free-trading country for a very long time, tariffs aren’t something we like as an instrument for regulating trade.
There’s a different philosophy in America, and Bob Lighthizer definitely has a different philosophy about tariffs. Whether you could get a carve out for the UK, I mean, obviously we’ll be arguing to have as few tariffs as possible.
And if there are tariffs as small as possible, but where exactly that might come and in what circumstances, I think Trump has also hinted that it might be possible for different allies in different areas not to be caught by the tariffs, so we’d want to explore that really thoroughly.
Trump has a lot of relationships with Brits, notably Nigel Farage, who’s here all the time. Does that help or hurt — these back channels?
I wouldn’t describe Nigel Farage as a back channel. He obviously knows Trump very well. They appear to be friends. The British government doesn’t use him as a back channel.
Do you talk to him?
I haven’t seen him for a while. He was in Milwaukee, he doesn’t often come through Washington.
What is your understanding of how Trump will approach Ukraine?
I don’t know. I don’t want to speak for him. He’s said different things in public. I think it’s reasonable that he wants to think about the trajectory in 2025 and beyond.
You’ll see what the prime minister said with [French President Emmanuel] Macron when he was in Paris the other day: The UK and France will go on supporting Ukraine.
Let’s talk about British diplomacy for a minute. Ben Judah wrote a piece in the Atlantic in 2019 trashing your predecessor, and complaining that Britain had a delusional view of itself as having a special relationship with the United States.
I don’t think it was true then, I don’t think it’s true now, and I’m not sure that Ben would stand by every word of it. Now he’s working for [Foreign Secretary] David Lammy.
Whether you call it a special relationship or not, it is undeniably different from that which any other country has with the United States. When you put together all the things that are different, the UK is America’s only truly global ally with truly global reach. It may be a lot smaller reach than the US, but it’s still there. It’s still global, and it’s reliable.
We have a nuclear deterrent, so we’re one of the permanent members of the Security Council. We’re one of the only countries under the Non Proliferation Treaty who can have nuclear weapons. And our nuclear deterrent, like the Americans’, is badged to NATO, so that makes us different from the French.
Then you have something like a trillion dollars going backwards and forwards in trade and investment. We are the largest single nation investing in America by quite an order of magnitude.
Everybody knows about the intensity of the defense, intelligence, security relationships, which is certainly there. We are the closest to of all the Five Eyes, but it’s also things like just everyday life at any given moment. There are all these British scientists working in American academic and research institutions. There are all these health people getting together to explore new vaccines or new life sciences. There are education tie-ups. It’s kind of every nook and cranny of public life.
Somewhere there’ll be Brits and Americans working alongside each other, and then you have all the philosophical, conceptual stuff. We both have an approach to life that is more permissive than coded. In both countries, everything is permitted unless it’s prohibited. If you are in a Napoleonic code system, it’s the other way around. And I do think the more I’m here, the more I think that particular factor is at the root of almost everything we do.
I’m quite sentimental.
I’ve been told that [former Blair aide Lord] Peter Mandelson is giving people in London the impression that he’ll be here any minute [as the new ambassador]. Would you have any advice for him?
I don’t know that it will be Peter Mandelson. The prime minister and foreign secretary haven’t chosen my successor.
The other thing I heard when I called around this morning was that you’d like to stay.
Oh, who wouldn’t like to stay, right? But diplomats typically are not kept in post for too long.I will stay as long as the government wants me to stay. In joking terms, I say I have to be dragged out by my fingernails. This is such a fantastic job, and it’s such a privilege to do it. So whoever’s chosen as my successor will have a fantastic job. Early 2025 is what we’ve been saying. That’s what’s written down. So we’ll see.