Starmer's visit to the White House comes a day before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits DC to sign an agreement on sharing the country's mineral resources with the US.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office now Trump makes reference to the visit, saying America needs rare earth minerals.

"President Zelensky is coming to see me on Friday morning", Trump says. "And we're going be signing really a very important agreement for both sides because it's really going to get us into that country, working there."

He calls the deal a "backstop".

The pair then take questions from reporters.

The first is on the Tate brothers, who have landed in Florida after Romanian prosecutors agreed to let them leave - follow our live coverage on this story here.

Trump responds that he "doesn't know anything about it".

Starmer says he will need to catch up with the story before responding in full.

Image source, Getty Images

Keir Starmer hands Donald Trump a letter from King Charles - it's an invitation for a second state visit, which he calls "unprecedented".

Trump says he's happy to accept the invitation.

US President Donald Trump starts the meeting with Keir Starmer in the Oval Office with a short address.

He says: "It's a great honour to have Prime Minister Starmer at the Oval Office.

"It's a very special place and he's a special man - and the United Kingdom is a wonderful country that I know very well, I'm there a lot.

"I'll be going there and we expect to see each other in the near future - we'll be announcing it.

"We're going to be discussing many things today, we're going to be discussing Russia/Ukraine, we'll be discussing trade and lots of other items, and I think we can say we are going to be getting along on every one of them.

"We've had a tremendous relationship and, frankly, the prime minister and I have met twice before, and we get along very famously, as you would say, and I look forward to it very much."

Image source, Getty Images

We've now seen the footage of Donald Trump and Keir Starmer's brief remarks in the Oval Office, before the doors were closed and the cameras cut.

The pair took turns to speak to the teams of officials and reporters, before taking a number of questions.

We'll share the key moments from their interaction over the next few posts.

We're just waiting to hear what Keir Starmer and Donald Trump have to say as they sit down together in the Oval Office.

In the meantime, here's how the British prime minister was greeted by Trump outside the West Wing:

Following their handshake, the two leaders have entered the White House and are now making their way to the Oval Office.

We're expecting them to make brief remarks and take a few questions from the pack of reporters assembled in the room.

While we won't be able to bring you that exchange live, a recording of it will be made available to us shortly afterwards.

We'll update you all on the key lines as soon as we can. Stay tuned.

Before heading into the West Wing, Trump is asked by a reporter if he can get a peace deal done with Russia.

Over our feed, we can't make out if the US president responded or not.

Our reporter at the White House, Bernd Debusmann Jr, tells us he replied: "Yes we can."

Image source, Getty Images

Moments ago, Donald Trump stepped outside the White House and greeted Keir Starmer outside the door to the West Wing.

The pair paused for a moment and turned to smile for the watching cameras. They shook hands and made for indoors.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

After a short delay, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has just pulled up outside the White House for his meeting with US President Donald Trump.

The pair are expected to talk briefly to the media before holding a private meeting. A joint press conference will follow later in the day.

Stay with us for further updates.

Image source, Getty Images

We're still waiting for Keir Starmer to arrive for his talks with President Trump at the White House.

We were originally told 17:15 GMT would be the moment, but that's now been and gone.

We're watching a live feed of the entrance to the West Wing - as soon as we catch the PM's car drawing up, we'll let you know.

Image source, Pool

We're expecting Keir Starmer to arrive at the entrance to the West Wing of the White House any minute now.

We'll update you as soon as that happens. Follow along by tapping the watch live icon at the top of the page.

Starmer has few Trump cardspublished at 17:08 Greenwich Mean Time 27 February

17:08 GMT 27 February

Gary O'Donoghue
Senior North America correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

This is not a partnership of equals.

Bear in mind that America is the most powerful country in the world, Britain is a pretty small country off Europe.

However, British governments since World War Two have believed they can exercise and have exercised influence on the Americans through the so-called special relationship, and that’s what Keir Starmer is going to try to re-kindle today.

He doesn’t have many Trump cards, but he will try to appeal to that history, which is not something Donald Trump particularly cares about. But he also might try to appeal to the shared interests on trade and global security, and on China as an enemy for everyone in the west.

So, there are some buttons Starmer will attempt to press, but he doesn’t come to the White House, frankly, with much to offer. This is why you’ve heard Starmer stress the increase in defence spending, which will and has gone down very well with this administration.

Chris Mason
Political editor, reporting from the White House

Hello from the White House Press Briefing Room.

The dogs have had a good sniff of my bags — and thankfully left my bagel untouched — and I am now perched here awaiting our call into the Oval Office.

The prime minister should be here in a bit for what will be one of the landmark moments of his first year in office. It’ll be the first time we have ever seen Keir Starmer and Donald Trump together — their one other face to face meeting at Trump Tower in New York in September was away from the cameras.

British diplomats reckon that meeting and subsequent phone calls have established a good, warm, human relationship between the two men.

We’ll soon get to see for ourselves how much is in that.

Today's Trump-Starmer talks are likely to be dominated by the war in Ukraine, with the UK prime minister pushing for US security guarantees if and when the war ends to deter Russia from invading again.

But there are other matters up for discussion between the two leaders: namely trade relations on AI and energy, according to a senior US official.

The official tells reporters ahead of the meeting that the US is looking for "reciprocal and equal trade" and to "deepen" economic ties.

Image source, EBU

When Starmer and Trump meet today, it's expected that the two will discuss the UK's defence spending which - as we just mentioned - the British PM has announced will increase to 2.5% of the national income by 2027.

Trump has long called for European members of the Nato military alliance to pay more for their defence - today, senior US officials indicated he's "very pleased" with Starmer's plans.

But while the defence spending has gone up, the number of staff in the UK's army has continued to wane. As of the end of 2024, the army had just shy of 74,000 personnel - down from more than 104,000 at the start of 2012.

Image source, Getty Images

Alastair Campbell - formerly an adviser to ex-British PM Tony Blair - also has a take on how Starmer should handle the talks with Donald Trump: he needs to be "very, very clear" about the messages he wants to land.

Campbell says Starmer should approach the subject of security guarantees for Ukraine from a position of strength, citing his plans to raise UK defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027.

“You state what your position is... you talk about why it matters to Ukraine and to the wider world if Putin is allowed to think that he has won the war," Campbell tells the BBC.

Campbell also says Starmer shouldn’t dwell on the so-called “special relationship” between the UK and US, and instead focus on the "principles and values" which the two nations share.

"The hard facts of this are what matter," he says.

Image source, Getty Images

John Bolton, who served as national security advisor during Donald Trump's first presidency, has weighed in on how Keir Starmer should approach his upcoming meeting with the US president.

"Flattery often works," Bolton tells BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.

"I wouldn't spend a lot of time on the situation in Ukraine. I wouldn't spend a lot of time on Britain and what he's done. I wouldn't spend a lot of time on American national interests.

"I would spend a lot of time on Donald Trump's ego," he says.

Bolton, who had a falling out with Trump, has been an outspoken critic of the president.

On Starmer's aim to get security guarantees for Ukraine, Bolton believes the chances of achieving this are "close to absolutely zero".

"If Starmer can achieve that, he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize," he says.

Ahead of Keir Starmer's meeting with the US president, we've looked at how other leaders are navigating their relationship with the world's most powerful politician:

Image source, Reuters

Senior US administration officials tell reporters the White House is "very pleased" with Keir Starmer’s plans to increase defence spending to 2.5% of national income by 2027.

Ahead of the UK PM's arrival at the Oval Office, the officials say: “President Trump does continue to urge our Nato allies to increase their spending even further toward 5% to address years of underfunding in the defence capabilities of Nato.”

Trump has long been a staunch critic of the previous US administration's military support for Kyiv and wants Europe to play a bigger role in any future security guarantees for Ukraine.