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Lord Robertson, former NATO Secretary-General, was speaking at a Chatham House event to launch a House of Lords report on UK–US relations.

Members of the UK House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee attended Chatham House on 22 April to launch their new report, ‘Adjusting to the new realities: Rebalancing the UK–US relationship’.

Lord Robertson, Chair of the committee, described the strains on UK–US relations brought about by President Donald Trump’s tariffs, threats to seize Greenland, and decision not to consult the UK before launching the war on Iran, highlighting a ‘growing divergence between Westminster and Washington’.

He said:

‘Our reliance on the United States, predicated on the naïve belief that it will always be there to support us in times of conflict, has led to the diminishment of our own capabilities. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a wake-up call, and we must rapidly pivot to becoming a more autonomous military actor, working closely with European allies to develop the capacity to deter and to repel any Russian aggression on the continent’.

Lord Robertson was joined on the panel by committee members Lord Kim Darroch and Lord Rupert Charles De Mauley, and by Chatham House analysts Laurel Rapp, Head of the US and North Americas programme and Olivia O’Sullivan, Head of Chatham House’s UK in the World Programme. Both had provided evidence to the committee.  

The report highlights the need for the UK to look beyond the current White House administration, and adjust policy to account for long-term trends in the US.

‘The US’s geostrategic competition with China, its related deprioritization of European security and an increasing public scepticism of globalization are all trends which will shape future administrations, whether they be Republican or Democrat,’ he said.

In this context, he added, the UK’s ‘high-level of military dependence on the US is no longer tenable’.

He also outlined the report’s findings that the age of the United States acting as steward for the global rules and norms and institutions that structured state behaviour ‘may well be over’ – fundamentally destabilizing the international system – meaning the UK will have to develop more diverse partners.

The report follows Lord Robertson’s recent comments that the UK’s political leadership had shown ‘corrosive complacency’ in meeting a 5 per cent of GDP defence spending target.

Watch the event in full.