USA Bureau

Donald Trump's win is complicated for the UK, because of the president-elect's wild unpredictability.

The world is going to ask over and over again for the next four years, "what will he say or do next".

Right now, in foreign ministries around the world, including in London, hypothetical game plans for this scenario are becoming the real deal.

The prep has been done. But the prep may only count for so much.

Within government here, two recent diplomatic successes with Team Trump are pointed to.

Firstly, the dinner the prime minister and the Foreign Secretary David Lammy had with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York in September.

Trump, sources say, re-arranged his schedule to find time to meet Starmer and Lammy, which was seen as a “good gesture” with the soon to be president.

Secondly, the prime minister managed an early call with Donald Trump shortly after he survived an assassination attempt.

Both opportunities to talk to Trump are put down to an impressive diplomatic operation at the British Embassy in Washington – led by the ambassador Dame Karen Pierce.

Those close to the foreign secretary say he has also been putting in the leg work for months – including before the election – to get to know and to understand Donald Trump and those around him.

On a visit to Washington DC in May, he pointed out in a speech that it was his seventh visit to the US capital in three and a half years.

“I’ve been to the United States more times than I’ve been to France. I’ve lived in America, I’ve studied in America, I’ve got family in America. My father is buried in Texas,” he told an audience at the Hudson Institute.

He described Trump as “often misunderstood,” referred to the Vice President Elect JD Vance as “my friend” and added “I totally get the agenda…that drives America First,” a reference to the phrase Trump used in his Inauguration Speech in January 2017 to spell out that “every decision…will be made to benefit American workers and American families.”