UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband declined to address his past inflammatory comments about President Trump during a photo opportunity with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the State Department on Wednesday, instead steering the conversation toward pressing global issues.
When a reporter asked whether he still considered Trump a “racist” – a label he used in 2016 after Trump’s first election victory – Miliband replied only, “We are looking forward to our meeting,” before the two officials moved inside for their second meeting in as many months.
Miliband’s history with Trump includes a 2016 post on X (formerly Twitter) in which he called the then-candidate a “racist, misogynistic self-confessed groper,” and a 2017 follow-up accusing Trump of having “lowered the bar for idiocy.” Those remarks resurfaced when Miliband was appointed to his current role under new Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
Wednesday’s meeting was Miliband’s second with Rubio, following an initial encounter on the sidelines of a foreign ministers’ summit in the Philippines last month. Afterward, Miliband issued a statement emphasizing that the two discussed “the vital importance of reopening the Strait of Hormuz,” describing that as the British government’s “number one priority.”
The Strait, a crucial shipping corridor for global oil and gas, has been effectively closed amid the ongoing Iran war, and Miliband had stressed before the talks that restoring commercial traffic would help ease economic pressures at home.
Beyond Hormuz, Miliband said they talked about “standing together with Ukraine in the face of Putin’s war,” and addressed “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.”
Miliband’s diplomatic debut has been shadowed by his earlier rhetoric, which US Ambassador to the UK Warren Stephens dismissed in July as “wrong,” while expressing hope that the foreign secretary’s views had evolved. Stephens told Sky News, “People’s view of President Trump in 2016 is probably a lot different than it is … now.”
Before taking on the foreign brief, Miliband served as energy secretary, where he championed net-zero policies and renewable energy initiatives – a record that could complicate his outreach to a Trump administration that has prioritized fossil fuel expansion and rolled back climate regulations.
The meeting comes as Trump has signaled a possible deal on Hormuz, and as the administration faces domestic political battles, including a potential Iran deal within days and House Democrats escalating a fight over energy grants.
