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U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband ignored questions from reporters about his past criticisms of President Trump ahead of a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington.
After Trump’s first election victory in 2016, Britain’s new top diplomat called him a “racist, misogynistic self-confessed groper” and later said Trump had “lowered the bar for idiocy” in a 2017 post on the social platform X.
When asked if he still thought the president was a “racist” as he posed for photos with Rubio, Miliband did not respond, saying only, “We are looking forward to our meeting,” before the two officials headed inside the State Department.
The meeting was Miliband’s second with Rubio after the pair first met on the sidelines of a foreign ministers’ summit in the Philippines last month.
Following the Wednesday meeting, Miliband said in a statement that the two discussed “the vital importance of reopening the Strait of Hormuz,” the vital shipping corridor that closed amid the Iran war, which Miliband described as the British government’s “number one priority.”
Miliband had stressed ahead of the talks that reopening the strait would be a key priority, as restoring commercial shipping would help ease economic pressure at home.
He also added that the two also talked about “standing together with Ukraine in the face of Putin’s war, and spoke about the intolerable situation in Gaza and the urgent need to address the humanitarian situation there, as we work towards a lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis.”
Before becoming foreign secretary under new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, Miliband served as Britain’s energy secretary, where he promoted net-zero policies and renewable energy practices.
Miliband’s previous critical comments about Trump resurfaced after his appointment in July. U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. Warren Stephens brushed off Miliband’s remarks in July, saying while Miliband had been “wrong,” he was hopeful that his views had changed in the years since.
“Those were some time ago, I think, and, hopefully, his views have changed,” he told Sky News.
When asked whether the new top diplomat could collaborate effectively with his White House counterparts, Stephens replied, “People were people. People’s view of President Trump in 2016 is probably a lot different than it is … now.”
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