Trump and Starmer's White House talks: fact checked

The Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer met US President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, in their first face-to-face meeting since the latter’s return to office. 

We’ve taken a look at some of the claims made during a Q&A with reporters in the Oval Office—on aid to Ukraine, tariffs and an invitation for Mr Trump to make a second state visit to the UK.

Has the US given Ukraine ‘$300 billion plus’ in aid? 

Mr Trump claimed that the US was “in for $300 billion plus” in Ukraine, referring to the amount of aid it has sent.

We’ve not seen any evidence to support this figure, which both Mr Trump and US defence secretary Pete Hegseth have used recently, and it’s not clear what it is based on. It is much higher than other estimates for the amount of aid the US has given Ukraine since the Russian invasion in 2022 (though estimates for the total amount vary depending on what methodology is used, what’s included and the timeframe involved).

We’ve previously asked the US Department of Defense and the State Department about the $300 billion figure, but have not been given any details of what it is based on. 

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a research institute in Germany, tracks the international military, financial and humanitarian assistance allocated and committed to Ukraine since 2022. It estimates that the US allocated total assistance worth €114.2 billion (about $119.5 billion) between February 2022 and December 2024, with a further €4.84 billion (about $5.1 billion) committed but yet to be allocated.

A higher total aid figure of $175 billion has been reported widely in the media. This figure refers to the total amount of aid for Ukraine approved by Congress since 2022. However, the Council on Foreign Relations think tank notes: “Of the $175 billion total, only $106 billion directly aids the government of Ukraine.”

The US inspector general overseeing the country’s activities in relation to Ukraine has meanwhile estimated that between February 2022 and December 2024 approximately $183 billion was made available by the US for the response to the war in Ukraine—including funds spent in the US and other countries outside of Ukraine.

Without knowing what Mr Trump’s $300 billion figure was based on, it’s impossible to know how comparable it is to any of these other estimates. 

The US did provide a much smaller amount of assistance to Ukraine prior to 2022, but we’ve not seen any evidence to suggest the total US aid given since the wider Russia-Ukraine conflict began in 2014 amounts to $300 billion.

How much money are the US and the UK ‘getting back’? 

On the topic of aid to Ukraine, Mr Trump also claimed that Europe would “get their money back”, while the US would not.

In response, Mr Starmer said: “We’re not getting all of ours [back]... there were some loans but mainly it was gifted actually.”

The US and Europe have both provided Ukraine with a mixture of loans, grants and guarantees (whereby a nation agrees to act as a guarantor on loans). 

Again, different estimates have been published.

The Kiel Institute’s breakdown of financial aid allocated to Ukraine suggests that most of the financial assistance allocated by Europe was in the form of loans, whereas most of the financial assistance provided by the US was in the form of grants.

The Kiel Institute’s data suggests most of the UK’s financial aid to Ukraine has been allocated either through grants or guarantees.

These figures refer to allocated financial aid only, so don’t include financial aid that has been committed but not allocated, or military and humanitarian aid.

The EU says that once all assistance (military, humanitarian and financial) is taken into account, 65% of the assistance it has provided to Ukraine since 2022 has been in the form of “grants or in-kind support” and 35% in the form of “highly concessional loans”.

Who pays for tariffs? 

A reporter suggested to Mr Trump that tariffs are paid for by US consumers and importers. He replied: “No they are not, I think they are paid for by the country.”

Although it’s not entirely clear what Mr Trump was referring to, he has previously suggested on a number of occasions that tariffs are paid by foreign countries. In his inauguration speech, for example, he said: “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”

However tariffs—which are a form of taxes charged on goods imported from other countries—are actually paid by the companies importing the goods, which in this case would be US companies bringing foreign goods into the US. 

Where the burden of the tariffs ultimately falls is uncertain, and can vary. Companies importing goods may choose to pass the additional costs on to consumers in the form of higher prices. They may choose to absorb the costs themselves, and take lower profits. Or it may be that foreign companies exporting goods to the US end up lowering their prices, which would likely impact their profits.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has previously said the evidence from tariff increases under the last Trump administration shows that the cost was “almost entirely passed on to domestic consumers”.

In a video on the IFS website, deputy research director Peter Levell said: “It wasn’t a reduction in the prices that foreigners were charging to enter the US market—it was an increase, almost one for one with the tariff rate, for domestic consumers.”

You can read more about tariffs and Mr Trump’s plans in our tariffs explainer.

Is VAT a tariff? 

Speaking about US trade with other countries, Mr Trump said: “We do have problems with the EU because they’ve tariffed us and they do it in the form of a VAT tax which is about 20%.”

This is not the first time that Mr Trump has compared VAT (value-added tax) to tariffs, but his comments have been challenged as VAT is not generally regarded in this way. 

In a post on X, the economist Julian Jessop, a fellow at the free market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs, said: “VAT is not a tariff as it does not discriminate between imports and domestic goods.”

Tariffs are taxes on imports while VAT is a tax on domestic consumption, regardless of where the goods or services are produced. Our explainer has more information on Mr Trump’s proposal to treat VAT like a tariff.

Is a second state visit for Trump ‘unprecedented’? 

Mr Starmer presented Mr Trump with an invitation from King Charles to attend a state visit to the UK. Mr Starmer described the visit, which would be Mr Trump’s second, as “unprecedented”, saying it “has never happened before”.

A state visit is a formal visit by a foreign head of state to the UK, with foreign monarchs, presidents and prime ministers invited by the British monarch on the advice of the UK government.

In the letter Mr Starmer gave to Mr Trump, the King reportedly wrote: “As you will know this is unprecedented by a US President.”

This does indeed appear to be the case. Former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush each had one state visit to the UK, in each case during the first term of their respective two-term presidencies. While we’ve not found a full record of state visits prior to Queen Elizabeth II taking the throne in 1952, we’ve not identified any examples of a US president making two state visits to the UK.

In addition to a second state visit being unprecedented for a US president, it also appears that Mr Trump is the first elected leader of a foreign country to be invited to a second state visit, at least since 1952 (though some monarchs, including Queen Margrethe of Denmark, have made more than one state visit to the UK).