Britain’s prospective new ambassador to Washington has rowed back on comments he made about U.S. President Donald Trump.
Lord Peter Mandelson has said he was “wrong” to describe Trump as a “danger to the world” in an interview he gave to the London Evening Standard in 2019.
Mandelson said: “I consider my remarks about President Trump as ill-judged and wrong.
“I think times and attitudes towards the president have changed since then.
“I think people have been impressed, not just by the extraordinary second mandate that he has received from the American people, but the dynamism and energy with which he approached not just the campaign but government as well.”
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer named Mandelson as the next British ambassador to Washington in December 2024, to take over from current Ambassador Dame Karen Pierce.
Questions have since been raised about the Labour peer’s links to China, however, leading some to suggest Trump could refuse to accept him.
He is currently president of the international think tank Policy Network, honorary president of the Great Britain–China Centre, and chairman of strategic advisory firm Global Counsel.
In his interview with Fox News, Lord Mandelson praised Trump, saying he was a “nice” and “fair-minded person” who could become “one of the most consequential American presidents I have known in my adult life.”
“I think that with the approach he is taking to government, which frankly just seems to us in Britain so much more organized, it’s so much more coherent, he seems to be so much more clear in what he wants to do, we take encouragement from that. That gives us greater confidence,” he said.
A veteran of the previous Labour cabinets of both Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Mandelson called his appointment “a great honor.”
“It is a great honor to serve the country in this way,” he said in a statement.
London is attempting to build bridges with the new administration in Washington and exempt British goods from the global tariffs that Trump has threatened to impose.
In her speech on Wednesday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she would be “guided by one clear principle, above all, to act in the national interest for our economy.”
“That means building on our special relationship with the United States under President Trump,” she said.
Earlier in the week, the UK government said the prime minister had a “very good early engagement” with Trump during a 45-minute phone call that touched on trade and the economy.
Trump has also said that he has a “very good relationship” with Starmer and that he has done a “very good job thus far.”
Mandelson is not the only British official who has changed his tone on Trump.
While in opposition, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy regularly poured scorn on the president, calling him a “tyrant” and “no friend of Britain.”
However, Lammy has since performed a volte-face and recently said ahead of the inauguration: “The Donald Trump I met ... had incredible grace, generosity, very keen to be a good host; very funny; very, very, very friendly; very warm, I have to say, about the UK, our royal family, Scotland.”
Starmer himself has also moderated his tone in relation to the new president.
