Yvette Cooper Greets Donald Trump at Stansted Despite Past Criticisms

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper publicly greeted U.S. President Donald Trump with a warm handshake and smiles when he arrived at London Stansted airport for his second state visit, despite having sharply criticised him in posts and speeches during his first term.

Cooper met Trump and his wife, Melania, as they stepped off Air Force One, and RAF personnel from The King’s Colour Squadron formed a guard of honour. The arrival was accompanied by ceremonial honours appropriate to a state visit.

Those scenes contrasted with comments Cooper made while Labour was in opposition. In a July 8, 2017, social media post, she wrote: “We are forgetting to be disturbed by Trump, he is normalising hatred and it's dangerous.” In a speech to the Fabian Society that year she said the Republican’s presidential campaign had been built on “vitriol and abuse,” citing what she described as “aggressive misogyny,” “Islamophobia” and “xenophobia.”

Cooper also criticised earlier Trump statements. On Dec. 8, 2015, after he proposed what he called a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the US,” she wrote that his remarks were “ignorant & islamophobic” and called them “irresponsible & dangerous.” In February 2017 she warned that what she described as the Trump administration’s “unstable behaviour” on Russia “must surely alarm” then-prime minister Theresa May. In August 2017 she criticised the president for what she described as “unleashing of white supremacists.”

Cooper, who replaced David Lammy as foreign secretary in a Cabinet reshuffle earlier this month, is not the first senior British official whose earlier public criticisms of Trump have drawn attention during the visit. Lammy, who served as foreign secretary until this month, had previously described Trump in sharply critical terms while an opposition MP, calling him a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath” and posting other derogatory remarks on social media. Lammy said last year that his past comments were “old news” and suggested that the duties of public office required different judgments.

Officials from both governments have treated the visit as a formal state occasion, with Whitehall and the U.S. delegation following diplomatic and ceremonial protocols. British ministers and senior officials routinely host visiting heads of state regardless of prior political differences, and state visits typically include formal welcomes, military honours and scheduled bilateral meetings.

Critics and commentators noted the contrast between Cooper’s earlier public denunciations and her ceremonial role on arrival. Supporters of the foreign secretary pointed out that ministers regularly set aside personal or party disagreements in order to carry out official duties that serve national interests.

The visit will include further bilateral engagements and formal events scheduled by palace and government officials. The reception at Stansted marked the start of several days of meetings and ceremonial occasions intended to reaffirm the U.K.-U.S. relationship while exposing differences in tone between private criticisms made in earlier political contexts and the public courtesies of state diplomacy.