Defence secretary Wes Streeting is in Washington DC to meet US counterpart Pete Hegseth at a sensitive time when relations between the two normally close allies are strained by tensions over Ukraine, Iran and the Middle East. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
The meeting is due to take place at lunchtime in the Pentagon a day after Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited London and said he felt betrayed by the US decision to throttle military access to the Starlink satellite internet system.
The UK finds itself in the middle of the deepening US-Ukraine dispute, and on Wednesday prime minister Andy Burnham met Zelenskyy and promised that he would engage in "laying the ground" for a reconciliation with US president Donald Trump.
At the same time, the UK faces questions about its ability to safeguard US military bases in Britain to the satisfaction of Hegseth, more than one of which has been targeted by Iran, leading to the recent withdrawal of 12 B-1 bombers from Fairford.
The US is also weighing up whether it wants to help Saudi Arabia in the fast developing conflict with Yemen's Houthis at a time when it is trying to step away from a fresh outbreak of fighting with Iran before midterm elections next month.
That presents the UK with a difficult choice, because while the UK has largely kept out of the Iran war, it has acted as a junior partner with the US in joint in a series of air strikes on the Houthis during 2025 and early 2025.
Labour recognises that engaging in fresh bombing in the Middle East could be a difficult sell to the British public when Trump's war in Iran is being blamed for cost of living pressures and increased energy prices at home.
Prior to meeting Hegseth, Streeting will also appear at the CSIS thinktank, at a session entitled "the future of UK-US defence cooperation".
Prior to his flight to the US, Streeting sidestepped the tricky geopolitical issues and emphasised that he hoped that in future "Britain and America can lead the next generation of defence innovation".