President Donald Trump said the historical relationship between his country and Britain is "not like it used to be" amid a diplomatic dustup over U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who told Parliament on Monday his government "does not believe in regime change from the skies," initially refused to have any role in the U.S.' war with Iran.
He later agreed to a U.S. request to use two British military bases for a "specific and limited defensive purpose."
The refusal sparked the ire of Trump, who told British daily newspaper The Sun that "this was the most solid relationship of all. And now we have very strong relationships with other countries in Europe," singling out France and Germany.
Starmer has cultivated a warm relationship with Trump, who was given an unprecedented second state visit to Britain last year.
The so-called special relationship between the World War II Allies is largely built on long-standing defense cooperation and intelligence sharing.
Any potential military action in the Middle East, however, is politically sensitive in the U.K. following former Prime Minister Tony Blair's support for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Trump said Starmer had "not been helpful," adding: "I never thought I'd see that. I never thought I'd see that from the U.K. We love the U.K.
"It's just a much different kind of relationship. ... It's very sad to see that the relationship is obviously not what it was," he said in the telephone interview.
The scathing comments come a day after Trump described Starmer's first reaction to the U.S. request as "very disappointing" in an interview with another U.K. newspaper, The Daily Telegraph.
Government Minister Darren Jones defended Starmer's decision to get involved in military action only where there was a "legal basis" to do so and a "clear plan" that was in the U.K.'s own national interest.
"That's why we were not involved in the initial strikes in Iran in the Middle East," he said.
"But it is also why we've consented to American Air Forces using our air bases and for British jets to be in the sky in order to defend British citizens who are currently in the region," he added.
He said two U.K. bases — RAF Fairford in western England and the U.K.-U.S. Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean —are cleared for use by the Americans.
Starmer's Downing Street office said on Monday he took the decision after Iran fired missiles over the weekend that put British interests and people "at risk."
"We all remember the mistakes of Iraq, and we have learnt those lessons," Starmer said later in Parliament.
The prime minister added that RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus — where the runway was hit Monday by a drone — was "not being used by U.S. bombers."
Evie Aspinall, director of the British Foreign Policy Group think tank, said Starmer faced a "very tight diplomatic tightrope."
"The U.K. wants to support the United States, not least to protect its own security interests and to show European value to the U.S., which remains critical in the context of Ukraine and Greenland," she told AFP.
"At the same time, it is deeply cautious of engagement with a conflict that could rapidly increase global insecurity and of working closely with an increasingly unreliable United States, who keeps undertaking actions which don't align with U.K. interests," she added.