Boris Johnson: Trump’s return could be ‘big win for the world’

Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson has endorsed Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States, arguing the controversial former leader might just be “what the world needs” right now — so long as Trump supports Ukraine in its war against Russia.

“We all need to grow up and get used to the prospect,” the former British leader wrote Friday in his weekly Daily Mail column. “If he does the right thing and backs the Ukrainians — and I believe he will — a Trump presidency can be a big win for the world.”

NATO-skeptic Trump — who has repeatedly lavished praise on the bellicose Russian President Vladimir Putin — has sparked fears in Kyiv that he would withdraw U.S. military aid for Ukraine; such concerns are echoed in other Western capitals. But Johnson disagrees.

The globe needs a leader “whose willingness to use force and sheer unpredictability is a major deterrent to the enemies of the West” who is “an enthusiastic exponent of free markets and capitalism” and who is interested in a “proper free trade deal with the U.K.”

And Trump is “your man,” Johnson said.

Johnson, who was forced out as U.K. prime minister in summer 2022, has remained a staunch ally of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, even visiting the Ukrainian capital in January 2023.

Last year, Johnson took his lobbying overseas, turning up in Texas to rouse support for Ukraine among dozens of leading American conservative figures including politicians, donors and captains of industry. Johnson was attempting to curb growing discontent among Republicans over America’s financial support for Ukraine.

In his column, Johnson wrote that Trump was the first U.S. president to stand up for Ukraine, giving them “those Javelin anti-tank weapons” in 2018 which were “so valuable” in the battle for Kyiv.

“So whatever they now say about President Trump, I cannot believe that he will want to go down in history as the President who abandoned a country that he has already signally helped to keep free,” Johnson wrote.

“So to all my high-minded anti-Trump friends I say, calm down, folks,” he added. “The more you froth and fret, the more determined his supporters will be — and a Trump victory will continue to migrate from possibility to likelihood to nailed-on certainty.”

Johnson joins Trump’s longtime supporter, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, on a short list of European leaders who would welcome the return of the former president to the top political ranks. Orbán has repeatedly expressed his support for Trump, even sporting a red hat signed by the firebrand Republican front-runner last year.

But outside of these outliers, the European Union elite has for the most part been dreading Trump’s potential return to the White House.

NATO-skeptic Trump — who has repeatedly lavished praise on the bellicose Russian President Vladimir Putin — has sparked fears in Kyiv that he would withdraw U.S. military aid for Ukraine | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde recently warned that Trump’s reelection would be a “threat” to Europe; Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said that Europe would be left “on its own”; and the ghost of the ex-president haunted political and business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.

But despite the the international community’s reticence, Trump is inching ever closer to a showdown with incumbent U.S. President Joe Biden in November’s election.

He recently landed his first victory of the primary season in the Iowa caucuses, winning by a large margin and cementing his status as the candidate to beat. Johnson poked fun at the “hysterics” and panicked reaction that followed Trump’s recent win.

“In the cocktail parties of Davos, I am told, the global wokerati have been trembling so violently that you could hear the ice tinkling in their negronis,” he joked.

“Yes, folks, the great orange dirigible is miraculously re-inflating across the Atlantic,” he wrote. “The pachydermous human bouncy castle is rising again. Following his sweeping victory in Iowa, Donald Trump is now the overwhelming favourite to be the Republican nominee, and odds on to take the Presidency.”