STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Philip Reeker has been listening to Lauren with us. He is a career diplomat who's served under Republican and Democratic administrations, including both Trump and Biden. He was for a time the top diplomat in the U.S. embassy in the U.K. and is now with the D.C.-based advisory firm Albright Stonebridge Group. Good morning, sir.
PHILIP REEKER: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK. So Lauren said Keir Starmer, the prime minister, wants this visit to go ahead despite the insults, despite everything else. Does that surprise you?
REEKER: No. I think that what this visit will show is the enduring nature of the U.S.-U.K. relationship. It's gone on for decades, irrespective of who's in the White House or who's at No. 10 Downing Street, frankly. And it'll underscore, of course, this important moment - 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. I remember as a kid when his mother, the late queen, came to help mark the bicentennial back in 1976.
INSKEEP: Now, with that said, there seem to be some very loud disagreements right now, one of them being that Trump expected more support in his attack on Iran. We heard Lauren talk about digital services. We heard Lauren talk about tariffs. There's the continual insulting of NATO and of Europeans in general. Doesn't that put some strain on this relationship?
REEKER: Well, you know, the relationship is always full of ups and downs, whether political or economic, the tides of history as they are. I mean, it's 80 years since Winston Churchill called it the special relationship. And of course, we'd come through World War II together, remembering it wasn't that much longer before that the British had actually burned the White House in the War of 1812 and after the Revolutionary War. So a lot of tumult, but yet it is a unique relationship in the area of foreign affairs. And there's a special tie, indeed, between our two countries, I think.
INSKEEP: Can I ask you about that phrase, the special relationship? I'm not the first person to observe this. It sometimes seems this is a very special relationship for the U.K., and the United States doesn't care as much.
REEKER: Well, it was interesting when I was in the U.K., leading our embassy there. A lot of Brits didn't like us to use the term special relationship, so I tend to call it the enduring relationship or the resilient relationship. But we have so much in common, I mean, from language and the common law, the basis of so much in our culture and, of course, our economies - investment, trade. The king and the queen will see that in New York and underscore that. I think regardless of what you call it, there will always be a great tie between the United States and the United Kingdom. They will remain united.
INSKEEP: There's an incredible link when it comes to intelligence - this Five Eyes organization made up of primarily English-speaking nations, the U.S. and U.K. being primary there. So far as you can tell, so far as you know, does that cooperation continue on an intimate level, regardless of what administrations are saying or doing?
REEKER: I believe it does. I mean, I saw it first-hand, of course, at the embassy in London, particularly leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. And I think that continues today, regardless of the tensions we may have over particular geopolitical or foreign policy decisions on one side of the Atlantic or the other.
INSKEEP: Do you worry, though, about these two countries getting on a fundamentally different track when it comes to their approach to the world, to stability in the world, to foreign policy and other things?
REEKER: You know, I think governments, administrations are transitory. And it's the people - and that's what the King will be focusing on, reaching out to the American people more broadly. He is particularly interested in the United States. I had many opportunities to meet him, and we discussed his interest in America. He's been here, of course, many, many times.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
REEKER: As had his mother. And we'll hear, I think, in his joint address to Congress just how broad and, indeed, enduring the relationship is.
INSKEEP: Philip Reeker served as charge d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in the United Kingdom, among other diplomatic posts for the United States. Ambassador, thanks so much.
REEKER: Thank you, Steve.
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