David Cameron says he 'agrees' with Donald Trump that Gaza war must be brought to a close as quickly as possible after Mar-a-Lago meeting

British Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron on Wednesday said he agreed with Donald Trump that the war in Gaza needs to end as soon as possible.

He was speaking two days after joining the former president for a steak dinner at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.

Trump last week warned Israel that it needed to wrap up the conflict quickly because it was losing the public relations battle. 

Cameron was asked about the meeting during an appearance on Fox News and how Trump might fight the war.

He said he had to be careful about revealing too much about their private discussions. 

'But former President Trump has said quite a lot of things in recent days about how this war does need to be brought to a close and I would agree with that,' he said. 

'But as I say, one way or the other, we have to get ... the people responsible for October the seventh cannot remain in Gaza. 

'We need to get those hostages freed and hopefully this can be done in the coming months before we get to your November elections.'

On Tuesday Cameron met Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington, D.C., and Wednesday he was meeting congressional lawmakers. 

Last week, Trump offered his thoughts on the war in Gaza.

'You’ve got to get it over with, and you have to get back to normalcy,' he said in an interview with The Hugh Hewitt Show. 'And I’m not sure that I’m loving the way they’re doing it, because you’ve got to have victory. 

'You have to have a victory, and it's taking a long time.'

And he repeated claims that Israel was losing in the court of world opinion.

'Israel is absolutely losing the PR war,' he said.

Much of Cameron's time during the visit has been focused on Ukraine and making the case for Congress to pass a stalled $60 billion funding package. It is being held up by Republican infighting, as hardliners threaten House Speaker Mike Johnson with a leadership challenge if he pushed ahead.

He delivered a message to that hardcore rump, warning them against the 'appeasement' of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. 

He said the funding package would be good for US security and jobs and show the West was prepared to stand up against 'bullies'.

His remarks in a US television interview came after he was snubbed by a major Trump supporter who is holding up the cash in a row over US domestic policy.  

Lord Cameron last week posted a video saying he was to meet Mike Johnson to tell him that 'Ukraine needs that money' and it was in the interests of US security to release it. 

But the Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives declined to meet the Foreign Secretary, despite the peer having a sit-down with Mr Trump himself. 

Mr Trump, who hopes to return to the White House following November's US election, is reportedly ready to pressure Ukraine to cede Crimea and the Donbas border region as a price for peace with Russia.

But Lord Cameron told CNN during his visit to Washington: 'Everyone wants to see an end to the killing and an end to the war. But you only get that by backing Ukraine, by showing strength.

'Peace comes through strength, not through appeasement and weakness.' 

Asked about the reported Trump peace plan, he said: 'I don't think we should be discussing those things right now, we should be discussing how do we get Ukraine back on the front foot.

'They've showed incredible bravery. They've showed that they can win against Putin, they're not going to lose for lack of morale, they're not going to lose for lack of ingenuity on the battlefield.

'The only way they can lose is if we don't give them the support they deserve."

He added that Europe was doing more to fund its own defence - a key demand of Mr Trump during his tenure in the White House - and 'Europe and America sticking together and standing up against bullies and dictators, that's good for both of us.'

A vote in Congress on the Ukraine funding package has been held up by political wrangling, with House Speaker Johnson's own position in jeopardy in the face of opposition from the Republican right.

Johnson, who is nicknamed 'MAGA Mike', is refusing to table a vote in the lower chamber of Congress.

He reportedly claimed he could not find time in his diary for a sit-down with the foreign secretary Tuesday, although there are some hopes a meeting could still take place, as they are said to remain in contact.

Last week, in a video recorded at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Cameron highlighted a meeting with Johnson, saying: 'I'm going to see him next week and say we need that money, Ukraine needs that money. It is American security, it is European security, It is Britain's security that is on the line in Ukraine, and they need our help.'

But the peer has a checkered history with Trump, having called him 'divisive, stupid and wrong' when he was prime minister in 2016.  He later accused the former president of being 'protectionist, xenophobic, [and] misogynistic.' 

The discussions with Blinken centred on what can be done to help Palestinians if the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) invade Rafah, in southern Gaza. 

The meeting came after hopes were dashed of a breakthrough in peace negotiations, six months after Hamas's deadly terrorist attack on Israel prompted reprisals that have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.

Egyptian and Qatari mediators handed Hamas the proposal which called for a temporary pause in hostilities, to get Israeli hostages out of Gaza and aid in, before both sides negotiate a lasting peace.

But an official from the terror group said: 'The Israeli position remains intransigent and it didn't meet any of the demands of our people.'

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Cameron said the West was drawing up a 'Plan B' if a ceasefire cannot be agreed.

He said: 'We have a clear Plan A for how we bring this conflict to an end. We have a temporary pause, we turn that into a sustainable ceasefire.

'But we have to think about what is Plan B... I think that's something we are going to have to be looking at and we were talking about today.'

The former PM also rejected growing calls to suspend arms deals to Israel but insisted he had 'graver concerns' over the humanitarian crisis taking place in Gaza. 

When asked, he also refused to publish any legal advice that had been given to the UK government over sales, adding that he had 'reviewed the latest advice' and the UK's position 'is in line with international partners'.

'On Israel and international humanitarian law, and as required by the UK's robust arms export control regime, I have now reviewed the most recent advice about the situation in Gaza and Israel's conduct of their military campaign,' Lord Cameron said.

'The latest assessment leaves our position on export licenses unchanged,' he added. 'Let me be clear, though, we continue to have grave concerns around the humanitarian access issue in Gaza.'

Pressure has been mounting in recent days after three Britons and one US-Canadian dual citizen were among seven aid workers for World Central Kitchen who were killed last week in an Israeli strike, which the military called an accident.

In a recent letter, more than 600 British lawyers, including former Supreme Court judges, said that Britain risked breaching international law by exporting weapons to Israel.

Lord Cameron met former President Donald Trump in Florida on Monday at Mr Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach. 

The Foreign Secretary became the first UK minister to meet Mr Trump since his dramatic departure from the White House three years ago.

The pair discussed Ukraine aid, the upcoming elections in the UK and US, NATO, Brexit – and their admiration for the late Queen.

Lord Cameron is expected to have been rebuffed in his lobbying, however, as the Republican presidential candidate is strongly opposed to giving Kyiv more money.

The foreign secretary previously stressed that he had not made the trip to the US to 'lecture' its politicians on giving more money to Ukraine, however, said he could get 'emotional' when speaking of Ukraine's plight. 

While speaking at a press conference alongside Mr Blinkin, Lord Cameron compared Ukraine's war with Russia to the allies D-Day landings to defeat the Nazis in 1944.

He said: 'To me this is so fundamental to how Britain and America have worked together over the years, over the decades, to keep our world safe and to enhance our security.

'I think of my grandfather landing on the Normandy beaches under the cover of an American warship. I think of how I worked together with President Obama to deal with the Isil threat in Syria and Iraq.

'How we hunted down those terrible killers of British and American hostages in the Syrian desert. Jihadi John and the like. 

'To me this is the same thing. We face a huge threat from an aggressive Putin taking other countries' territory by force and it is so important that we stick together.' 

His meeting with Mr Trump meeting is likely to have difficult, as Lord Cameron has made a string of critical comments about the former Republican leader. 

In 2016 he called the former President 'divisive, stupid and wrong' leading Mr Trumpt to respond: 'It looks like we're not going to have a very good relationship.' 

In Lord Cameron's memoirs, published in 2019, he said Mr Trump had won the Republican nomination because of his 'protectionist, xenophobic, misogynistic interventions'.

The White House said it had been aware of Lord Cameron's meeting with Mr Trump before it took place. 

The Us national security adviser Jack Sullivan, declined to say whether Biden's government thought the discussion would be helpful, according to the Times.'