What Keir Starmer figured out about Donald Trump before the rest of us

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You know, in retrospect, Keir Starmer figured out the game long before everyone else, even though he looked like a ridiculous brown-noser at the time.

Back in February, the British Prime Minister visited the Oval Office, brandishing a letter from King Charles inviting Donald Trump to a second state visit.

“This is really special,” Mr. Starmer said to the President and the cameras. “This has never happened before.”

And lo, a couple of months later, the U.K. had a trade agreement with the U.S. It wasn’t great, and it wasn’t legally binding, but Mr. Starmer’s bended-knee offering to the real king did what it was supposed to do.

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And so on Tuesday we had Mark Carney in the Oval Office, applying his once-combative elbows mostly to massaging Mr. Trump’s large and delicate ego.

The Prime Minister spoke very little during this visit. And while it’s true that Mr. Trump’s Oval Office guests never get to say much because they’re basically human stage lights trained on the President, there was a different quality to the Prime Minister’s reserve this time.

At his first Oval Office visit, in May, Mr. Carney was perceptibly a live wire, searching for chances to speak, and telling the President that some places – including Canada – “are never for sale.”

But this time, Mr. Carney was still and muted. It wasn’t the coiled silence of someone waiting to say their piece in the middle of a monologue, but more that studied defeat when you’re seated at a wedding next to someone exhausting, but you know you can’t be rude and tune out.

The few things the Prime Minister said all pointed in the same direction, and it was not toward a fight in front of the crease, or whatever pugnacious hoser metaphor we might have used a few months ago.

The Prime Minister opened by listing off the many large and impressive accomplishments that validate his description of the President, during his previous Oval Office visit, as a “transformative” leader. Overhauling the economy, defence spending commitments from NATO partners, peace across whole swaths of the globe, disabling Iran’s terror capacity, Mr. Carney rhymed off, fretting that he would run out of time for this résumé of excellence.

“The merger of Canada and the United States,” Mr. Trump interjected, because yes, we’re back on that adolescent troll job.

Mr. Carney deflected with a laugh, before finishing with a nod to the Oct. 7 anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel and “this prospect of peace that you’ve made possible.”

Four key moments from Carney’s meeting with Trump in Washington

At another point in the 30-minute media availability, Mr. Carney jumped in after a question about fentanyl to say that “any amount is too much” and Canada is working on its problems with that (which basically do not exist, but that is not the plane of reality where we live at the moment).

The President fielded multiple questions about what Canada would have to do to earn a reprieve from the tariffs that are gouging the economy. Mr. Trump explained it in almost David Attenborough nature documentary terms, with Canada and the U.S. living in close proximity and competing for the same resources in their shared ecosystem.

“We have natural conflict,” he said.

But Mr. Carney, in his one significant interjection, wished to remind the great star-spangled shark about the humble little companion suckerfish that provides a vital service by grooming the apex predator.

“Let’s be clear about the relationship as it stands right now,” the Prime Minister said, pointing out that Canada is the second-largest trading partner of the U.S. and its largest foreign investor, injecting half a trillion dollars in the past five years.

“There are areas, as the President just said, where we – conflict, maybe not so much – we compete,” he said. “There are areas where we compete, and it’s in those areas where we have to come to an agreement that works.”

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Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives have gone at Mr. Carney hard lately for talking tough back in the spring about fighting Mr. Trump for Canada, then arriving here in the fall with no trade resolution and a distinctly conciliatory tone. That’s a fair and obvious criticism, especially given how Canada’s goals have shifted from a win to harm reduction.

But when you’re in an argument with an unstable, ruthless person who has all the leverage, there’s the outcome that seems fair and satisfying and right, and then there’s the very different outcome that’s available to you given the circumstances. Sometimes it takes time to see that the second is all you have, and that the path to reach it might be grim and greasy.

For a time on Tuesday, it seemed there would be an announcement out of Mr. Carney and Mr. Trump’s meeting with their officials, potentially on steel tariffs, which are among the trade issues causing the most pain. Mr. Trump egged on this idea, teasing several times to the reporters squeezed into the Oval Office that Canada would be leaving Washington “very happy.”

But later in the afternoon, standing on the roof of the Canadian embassy with the Capitol at his back, Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, had nothing to announce except more negotiations. A reporter asked why Mr. Trump suggested Canada would be going home happy, and Mr. LeBlanc had no real answer.

In that Oval Office meeting, the final question lobbed at the two leaders – but really only one of them, because who are we kidding here? – was delivered with octave-jumping incredulity: You say Mr. Carney is a great man and you want to do a deal with Canada, so why don’t you?

“Because I want to be a great man, too,” Mr. Trump said. The room exploded with laughter, and Mr. Trump smiled radiantly.

The great man has expectations of what the world will offer him and how low everyone will bow as they hand it over; it’s just taken some people more time than others to figure it out.