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Few British politicians have American ties as deep as those of David Lammy, who is set to become Britain\u2019s foreign secretary if the opposition Labour Party wins the coming election, as the polls suggest it will.<\/p>\n
A son of Guyanese immigrants<\/a> who grew up poor in working-class London<\/a>, he spent summers with relatives in Brooklyn and Queens, working at Con Edison, before earning a master’s degree at Harvard Law School and befriending Barack Obama, for whom he canvassed in Chicago during his first presidential campaign.<\/p>\n Yet now, on the cusp of becoming Britain\u2019s chief diplomat, Mr. Lammy finds himself facing an uncertain, even potentially hostile, American political landscape. President Biden and the Democrats, with whom Mr. Lammy has cultivated a deep network of contacts, are fighting to hold off a resurgent Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n Having been chosen by the Labour leader, Keir Starmer<\/a>, partly because of his trans-Atlantic credentials, Mr. Lammy, 51, is scrambling to build ties with Republicans and, more challengingly, with those around Mr. Trump. It\u2019s a very different American establishment from the Democratic one he knows so well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Would Mr. Lammy pay a visit to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump\u2019s Palm Beach estate, as David Cameron, Britain\u2019s current foreign secretary, did two weeks ago<\/a> to lobby the former president on military aid to Ukraine?<\/p>\n \u201cOf course,\u201d he said in an interview this week in Portcullis House, the parliamentary office building across the street from Big Ben. Noting that he was headed soon to New York and Washington, he said, \u201cI\u2019m happy to talk to whomever the American people decide they want to run the country.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s a time-tested answer for any foreign politician during an American election year, especially one from a party that has held a double-digit polling lead<\/a> over the governing Conservatives for 18 months. But unlike many Europeans, who regard Mr. Trump with a mix of fear and bemusement, Mr. Lammy genuinely seems to believe he can find common ground with those in Mr. Trump\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n He has held meetings with former Trump officials like Mike Pompeo<\/a>, who served as secretary of state and C.I.A. director, and Robert C. O\u2019Brien<\/a>, who was Mr. Trump\u2019s last national security adviser. And he has struck up a relationship with Senator J.D. Vance, the Ohio Republican and enthusiastic Trump convert<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Vance\u2019s best-selling memoir, \u201cHillbilly Elegy<\/a>,\u201d he said, bore parallels to his own story, growing up with a single mother and an absent, alcoholic father, in Tottenham, where race riots convulsed the streets. Mr. Lammy, whose memoir is titled \u201cOut of the Ashes,\u201d said Mr. Vance\u2019s book \u201creduced me to tears.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI said to J.D., \u2018Look, we\u2019ve got different politics, but we\u2019re both quite strong Christians and we both share quite a tough upbringing,\u2019\u201d said Mr. Lammy, who would be Britain\u2019s second Black foreign secretary after James Cleverly, a Conservative.<\/p>\n The challenge for Mr. Lammy is that he shares more with Mr. Obama, who was a few years ahead of him at Harvard. The two men, who met 20 years ago at a gathering for Black alumni, had dinner when Mr. Obama visited London<\/a> last month. In Mr. Obama\u2019s Washington office hangs a portrait of the former president made by Mr. Lammy\u2019s wife, Nicola Green, an artist who chronicled<\/a> his 2008 campaign.<\/p>\n One of Mr. Obama\u2019s former advisers, Benjamin J. Rhodes, introduced Mr. Lammy to other Democratic lawmakers and has also become a friend. In the event of a Labour government and a second Biden administration, he predicted, \u201cYou would see a much more aligned U.S. and U.K. relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n But Mr. Rhodes said Mr. Lammy\u2019s gregarious manner and pragmatic politics would give him at least a fighting chance with a Trump administration. \u201cI think he believes that through force of personality, he could develop relationships in that circle,\u201d Mr. Rhodes said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For now, Mr. Lammy is determined not to offend. Asked about Mr. Trump\u2019s recent statement that he would tell the Russians to do \u201cwhatever the hell they want<\/a>\u201d to any NATO member that did not pay its fair share of the alliance\u2019s costs, Mr. Lammy seized on the reference to burden sharing.<\/p>\n \u201cIs Donald Trump right?\u201d he said. \u201c100 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n Too many NATO countries, Mr. Lammy said, still failed to meet the alliance\u2019s target of military spending equal to 2 percent of gross domestic product (Britain spends roughly 2.2 percent). The Labour Party has vowed to raise that to 2.5 percent, and Mr. Lammy accused the Conservatives of bleeding Britain\u2019s armed forces down to a size they had not seen since the Napoleonic era.<\/p>\n \u201cI recognize in Donald Trump an ability to use language to concentrate minds,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Other Labour veterans bear no illusions about the chemistry between a Labour government and Mr. Trump. The former president clashed with Theresa May<\/a>, a Conservative prime minister, though he had better relations with Boris Johnson and praised the current prime minister, Rishi Sunak, for seeking to water down Britain\u2019s climate goals<\/a>. Mr. Cameron, years before he visited Mar-a-Lago, called Mr. Trump\u2019s threat to ban Muslims from entering the United States \u201cdivisive, stupid and wrong<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA Trump government would be very difficult for a Labour government, but it would also be difficult for a Rishi Sunak government,\u201d said Jonathan Powell, who served as chief of staff to a Labour prime minister, Tony Blair.<\/p>\n With the risk of a turbulent stretch in trans-Atlantic relations, Mr. Lammy is emphasizing Britain\u2019s own neighborhood. In a new essay in Foreign Affairs magazine<\/a> that lays out a foreign policy based on what he calls \u201cprogressive realism,\u201d he said Britain needed to focus on rebuilding its security ties with the European Union, which have withered in the aftermath of Brexit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mending fences with Europe, Mr. Lammy said, was necessary regardless of whether Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump wins in November because the United States is increasingly preoccupied by its rivalry with China.<\/p>\n \u201cFor that reason, the U.K. must play its part here in Europe,\u201d Mr. Lammy said, adding that Labour was better placed than the Conservatives to rebuild trust because of European suspicion of Brexiteers like Mr. Johnson. \u201cEurope is keen to turn the page. The United States is keen for the U.K. to turn the page.\u201d<\/p>\n Even as their strategic priorities diverge, the United States and Britain remain lashed together in conflict zones like the Middle East. British and American warplanes jointly helped repel Iran\u2019s aerial assault on Israel.<\/p>\n Britain\u2019s position on the Israel-Gaza war mirrors that of the United States, and Labour has stayed largely in sync with the Conservatives, despite pressure from its left wing to take a harder line on Israel. Mr. Lammy described the conditions in Gaza as \u201chell on earth,\u201d but he has not called for Britain to suspend arms sales to Israel, as have legal experts and some members of Parliament.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n While Mr. Lammy said he was \u201cvery concerned\u201d that Israel might be violating international law, which would trigger a suspension of arms exports, he did not want to get ahead of a judgment by the government\u2019s lawyers.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m also very conscious that I and Keir Starmer might be officeholders\u201d within the coming weeks, Mr. Lammy said, pointing to speculation that if the Conservatives suffer dire losses in local elections in early May, Mr. Sunak might call a general election<\/a>.<\/p>\n As he contemplated that possibility, Mr. Lammy\u2019s thoughts came back to the United States, where he said the struggles of civil rights leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the election of Mr. Obama symbolized a bend in the moral arc toward racial justice that has transformed Britain as well.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I have the privilege of becoming foreign minister,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019m very conscious that I\u2019ll be the first \u2014 it almost makes me emotional as I say it \u2014 the first foreign secretary who is the descendant of enslaved people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n