How Sir Keir can have a 💯 meeting with President Trump

Policy proposals for FRUKUS, DODE, and a Ukraine peacekeeping force that’d pay for itself

The following was published this morning at the top of the UK Times. Text below (with a few updates since publication) for those without a Times login.

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For those of us in the UK who have admired President Trump and his America First foreign policy approach for some time, this past week has come as little surprise. If the Prime Minister wishes now to seize the international moment and avoid further proposals blowing up on launchpad, all he need do is combine diplomatic history with an understanding of President Trump and his closest advisors. The following is a trio of suggestions that would help end the war, secure Europe, and rejuvenate the Special Relationship.

The first is the Rubik’s cube of a UK and Europe-fronted security guarantee. The Prime Minister would be banging his head against a brick wall to try to persuade President Trump to allow Ukraine into NATO (which Sir Keir stated is still his aim as recently as this week). President Trump has said this will not happen, repeatedly, even whilst on the campaign trail in June (and having to look maximally tough): “[Ukraine in NATO] has always been off the table. It has always been understood – and that’s even before Putin [became President]… That was very provocative [from Biden].”

The Prime Minister should use energy of the moment instead to forge something new: FRUKUS – an alliance of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the acronym, the US deliberately coming last, with the US backstopping a security guarantee for only seven years. After seven years, US involvement sunsets, and Poland (which spends a commendable 4.1%+ of GDP on defence) and Germany replace the US to become “Friends of Ukraine and the US”.

Suggest to the President: “We want our continent to stand on its own two feet. Europe has a population five times that of Russia, and a combined GDP nearly ten times greater. We just ask for your generosity in providing a US backstop for the initial years to get FRUKUS off the ground credibly. Stabiliser wheels to bring the European bicycle into motion, if you will.” If the new US administration is banking now on warmer relations with Russia, and thinks, at least for the next few years, it can keep President Putin in check, this ought not to be too great an ask.

Unlike the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which was an empty promise, all countries involved would provide an Article 5-strength guarantee to Ukraine (the territory Ukraine maintains behind a US-negotiated truce line). FRUKUS would thus not be a replication of the 1994 or Minsk agreements – neither of which were actual security guarantees (oft misstated, but clear to those who’ve taken the time to study the actual documents). The 1953 Korean Armistice, forged by newly elected Republican President Eisenhower, has stood the test of time – 71.5 years and counting. Eisenhower considered it his second greatest achievement (after D-Day). “Mr. President, FRUKUS would help us get your forthcoming peace agreement into the league of such company – enduring for decades to come.” Incidentally, President Eisenhower also clobbered the leader of the country he was protecting to enforce a peace.

Preserving some minimal US backstop following the seven years, the US does now have a small (~10,000 troop) permanent military base in Poland. Ric Grenell, then-US Ambassador to Germany, now Presidential Envoy for Special Missions, first entertained this (moving over a small portion of US troops stationed in Germany) in President Trump’s first term. Established in 2023, Garrison Poland might prove to be one prophetic act of President Biden.

FRUKUS is to be pronounced like “ruckus”. It intentionally sounds like “don’t eff with us”. And were the Prime Minister able to return from Washington with a Presidential commitment for an elapsing backstop, British, French, Polish and German heads of state ought to build this alliance at speed, with Ukraine, to convey credible deterrence.

“The kaleidoscope has been shaken”

Second, a plan to secure Ukraine’s border – without the US picking up the tab. Any demarcation line will be eight times the length of Korea’s. What will surely now come to be referred to as the “47th parallel” between Ukraine and Russia is going to require a lot of peacekeepers. Suggested for the PM: “I’ve come to appreciate that this needs to be managed by United Nations peacekeepers (not Western troops or EU – effectively NATO – peacekeepers). We understand this is the only remedy that’s likely to be accepted by Russia – and I appreciate we do need Russia’s sign-off, to stop the killing and get the conflict wrapped up. UN troops are capable of steadying the situation, and will not be seen as a provocation.” While the UK is fully committed to Ukraine’s defence, drop rhetoric of UK and French troops being stationed in Ukraine (which has a much sturdier home military than the Republic of Korea in 1953) – which could scupper US attempts at an expedient resolution. Instead, stick a new UK + French military base in east Poland: “Fort FRUK.” And (rather than seeking to fly British military aircraft over Ukraine) ask the 47th President to consider re-joining the Open Skies Treaty (which Russia itself wants to rejoin), so that the Baltic states have better aerial visibility of any future Russian troop build-up.

How’s border security to be paid for? Not from the main UN budget (of which the US pays an outsized 25–27%, and the President’s team has already ruled out). Thankfully, the President’s Ukraine Envoy, Lt. General Kellogg, has the answer. In his America First Policy Institute report of April 2024, co-authored with Fred Fleitz: “We also call for placing levies on Russian energy sales to pay for Ukrainian reconstruction.” Why not extend this idea to fund UN peacekeeping troops? Secretary Rubio is signalling in this direction already.

Propose that Europe repair and restart one set of Nord Stream pipelines, and that a moderate supply of Russian energy finance Ukraine’s neutral peacekeepers (discharging talk of “a deal with the devil”, as European media presently puts it). A sensible amount of Russian energy supply with a levy would bring down European energy costs, keep American LNG prices competitive, and help bring down the recent rebound in US inflation. European natural gas prices are roughly four times higher than the United States’s. It can be made known that the US will not get European countries to spend 2.5%+ on defence sustainably (as is needed) without Europe having cheaper, diversified energy supply.

The UK can respectfully point out that the US might, in short order, prioritise less of its natural gas for European export. Post-Stargate and DeepSeek, the US could need more of its energy at home to power its Manhattan Project-level build out of AI data centres. Ukraine’s peacekeepers thus “administered by the United Nations; specially funded by a levy on responsible Russian energy flows to Europe”.

If one looks at a breakdown of countries from which UN peacekeeping troops are drawn, incredibly few are from Western countries, and virtually none are American. How many would be needed? Propose that Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, and a figure highly respected by the US top team, put forward a zero-bloat troop number and configuration. Many consider Erik to have had the best, cost-effective plan for Afghanistan, that the Pentagon did not pick up – which President Trump reportedly personally regrets. A border plan from Erik for Ukraine, with a Presidential rubber stamp (or Sharpie signature), then to be funded effectively by Europe and Russia jointly.

Third, propose a new UK-led department to oversee implementation of US-brokered terms. “We want to be your number one ally, and to manage the agreement on your behalf.” It should not be left to the EU/Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which failed to implement the Minsk agreements following the so-called Normandy Format talks.

Lt. General Kellogg has declared in the past few days that the US wishes for Europe to “own it” (long-term management, post-conflict). And Ric Grenell has said, “[What happened with the Minsk agreements] would be different under a Trump administration. There would be absolute holding people to their commitments… I think the tough part starts as soon as you sign the agreement.” The UK can fulfil this role.

Call the office the “Department of Diplomatic Enforcement” (DODE) – a diplomatic brother to DOGE. Not “America Alone”, but – commencing with the UK – an in-built foothold for allies to assist with US-led diplomacy. Though UK-led, suggest that DODE report into the White House and State Department, so the US continues both to be readily informed, and to provide a “shadow of power” – the absence of which was a key reason the OSCE floundered and the conflict recurred. This would be a huge value-add to rekindle relations with the new administration. It’s an enormous post-Brexit opportunity. And the UK is far and away best placed of any ally to do it. As the WSJ Editorial Board correctly noted in 2019: “The world also needs the UK’s pro-American streak – as ballast between the US and Europe.”

If DODE can do a better job than the OSCE, and prevent the conflict reigniting, it would save the US hundreds of billions (a saving surpassed only by DOGE) – to say nothing of untold prevented death and destruction.

If Sir Keir were to present this trilogy of pledges, President Trump would surely refer to the Prime Minister as his new “favourite world leader”, and put any past diplomatic faux pas to the back of his mind.

The ball has come loose from the back of a scrum internationally, to borrow a phrase. And there are US-UK policy ideas ripe for the taking. Sir Keir has the most robust electoral mandate right now of any European leader. Let’s hope, for the country, our Prime Minister doesn’t fruk it up.

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