Colby served under Trump as deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development from 2017-18 and is hotly tipped for a senior role in the event of a Republican victory in the US election in November. He currently runs the Marathon Initiative, a foreign policy think tank that is influential within the Republican party and with Trump’s inner circle.
He is also a leading critic of the latest package of US military aid to Ukraine, which was passed by Congress last month with strong support from the UK government. Cameron made a personal trip to Congress and visited with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort ahead of the vote, to plead with Republicans to back the package.
Colby told Power Play host Anne McElvoy that Cameron’s trips to Washington DC to urge Congress to pass the $61 billion of aid amounted to an “astounding intervention into the American system … I mean, talk about foreign interference.”
The UK government and embassy in Washington have invested heavily in the foreign secretary’s personal advocacy and contacts to consolidate support in Congress for Ukraine. That cut no ice with Colby, who reflected irritation in some Republican quarters at the tactics — notwithstanding Cameron’s meeting with Trump.
“Cameron finds every opportunity to come and moralize to the Americans after he was responsible for cutting the British military and the ‘panda hug’ of China in the early 2010s. So it’s really the height of audacity for such a person to be coming and reading us,” Colby went on.
Encouraging words for David Lammy
There were encouraging words for the foreign secretary’s opposite number, however. “Lammy is laying out a more compatible vision to what people like me are talking about, which is an increase in defense, spending more of a UK focus on Europe. I’d rather have a lot less talk and haranguing and more delivery,” Colby said.
