Fact check: Trump and Starmer’s White House talks
Full Fact looks at three claims from the Prime Minister’s meeting this week with the US president in Washington.
This round-up of claims has been compiled by Full Fact, the UK’s largest fact-checking charity working to find, expose and counter the harms of bad information.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer met US President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, in their first face-to-face meeting since the latter’s return to office.
We have taken a look at some of the claims made during a Q&A with reporters in the Oval Office.
– Has the US given Ukraine ‘300 billion dollars-plus’ in aid?
Mr Trump claimed the US was “in for 300 billion dollars-plus” in Ukraine, apparently referring to the amount of aid it has sent.
We have not seen any evidence to support this figure, which both Mr Trump and US defence secretary Pete Hegseth have used recently, and it is not clear what it is based on. It is significantly higher than other estimates for the amount of aid the US has given Ukraine since the Russian invasion in 2022 (though estimates for the total vary depending on what methodology is used, what is included and the time frame).
We have previously asked the US Department of Defence and the State Department about the 300 billion dollar figure, but have not been given any details of what it is based on.
The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a research institute in Germany, tracks the international military, financial and humanitarian assistance allocated and committed to Ukraine since 2022. It estimates that the US allocated total assistance worth 114.2 billion euros (about 119.5 billion dollars) between February 2022 and December 2024, with a further 4.84 billion euros (about 5.1 billion dollars) committed but yet to be allocated.
A higher total aid figure of 175 billion dollars has been reported widely in the media. This figure refers to the total aid for Ukraine approved by Congress since 2022. However, the Council on Foreign Relations think tank notes: “Of the 175 billion dollar total, only 106 billion dollars directly aids the government of Ukraine.”
The US inspector general overseeing the country’s activities in relation to Ukraine has meanwhile estimated that between February 2022 and December 2024 approximately 183 billion dollars was made available by the US for the response to the war there – including funds spent in the US and other countries outside of Ukraine.
Without knowing what Mr Trump’s 300 billion dollar figure was based on, it is impossible to know how comparable it is to any of these other estimates.
The US did provide a much smaller amount of assistance to Ukraine prior to 2022, but we have not seen any evidence to suggest the total US aid given since the wider Russia-Ukraine conflict began in 2014 amounts to 300 billion dollars.
– Who pays for tariffs?
A reporter suggested to Mr Trump that tariffs are paid for by US consumers and importers. He replied: “No they are not, I think they are paid for by the country.”
Although it is not entirely clear what Mr Trump was referring to, he has previously suggested on a number of occasions that tariffs are paid by foreign countries. In his inauguration speech, for example, he said: “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”
However tariffs – which are a form of taxes charged on goods imported from other countries – are actually paid by the companies importing the goods, which in this case would be US companies bringing foreign goods into the US.
Where the burden of the tariffs ultimately falls is uncertain, and can vary. Companies importing goods may choose to pass the additional costs on to consumers in the form of higher prices. They may choose to absorb the costs themselves, and take lower profits. Or it may be that foreign companies exporting goods to the US end up lowering their prices, which would be likely to impact their profits.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has previously said the evidence from tariff increases under the last Trump administration suggests the cost was “almost entirely passed on to domestic consumers”.
– Is a second state visit for Trump ‘unprecedented’?
Sir Keir presented Mr Trump with an invitation from the King to attend a state visit to the UK, which the US president accepted. The Prime Minister described the visit, which would be Mr Trump’s second, as “unprecedented”, saying it “has never happened before”.
A state visit is a formal visit by a foreign head of state to the UK, with monarchs, presidents and prime ministers from abroad invited by the British monarch on the advice of the UK government.
In the letter Sir Keir gave to Mr Trump, Charles reportedly wrote: “As you will know this is unprecedented by a US President.”
This does indeed appear to be the case. Former US presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush each had one state visit to the UK, in each case during the first term of their respective two-term presidencies. While we have not found a full record of state visits prior to Queen Elizabeth II taking the throne in 1952, we have not identified any examples of a US president making two state visits to the UK.
In addition to a second state visit being unprecedented for a US president, it also appears that Mr Trump would be the first elected leader of a foreign country to make a second state visit, at least since 1952 (though some monarchs, including Queen Margrethe of Denmark, have made more than one state visit to the UK).
