Liz Truss’ plan to woo Trump fanatics with MAGA credentials

Liz Truss is courting the Donald Trump administration in a bid to rebuild her reputation in the US with the hope of once again influencing politics in the UK, former aides have suggested.

The former prime minister is in Washington, DC for Trump’s inauguration ceremony and is seeking to “woo” the new White House team and its backers with the aim of relaunching her career.

According to those who worked closely with her during her time in Downing Street, Truss is still keen to win the “battle of ideas” and sees the US as fertile ground by which to restore her standing on the political stage.

“She knows she can’t win this fight in the UK for quite a while, but she can go to the US where there is a much lower engagement in UK politics to pitch herself as the Margaret Thatcher who was cut off by the deep state in her prime,” a former official told The i Paper.

“She will be able to say: ‘I faced the deep state and they will come after you, Donald Trump and Elon Musk.’ That gets some really serious interest over there. She wants to salvage some sort of legacy.”

Her former colleagues have insisted that her full-throated support for Trump’s “Maga [Make America Great Again] movement” has been long-standing, with one recalling that she would give advisers that she liked a copy of Trump’s The Art of the Deal as a leaving gift.

Truss posted a picture on X wearing a red Maga baseball cap on the streets of DC ahead of Monday’s inauguration ceremony with the caption: “The new Donald Trump term can’t come soon enough. The West needs it.”

A source close to her said she had been invited to several events in the US capital.

A former adviser said: “Her wearing of the Maga hat does not come completely from nowhere. She understood the Trump administration’s suspicion of globalism and believed that it was important to strike a trade deal with the likes of the US.”

At 49, Truss has many years ahead of her in the role of a former prime minister and is still eager to influence UK politics, the ex-aide said, but she recognises that “what she is fighting for is Trussism without Truss”.

“She knows everywhere she goes she draws attention,” they added. “But she is still talking to people within the Conservatives, parliamentary candidates and other aspiring people who are coming through the ranks who could take forward a reformed Trussism.

“She only has one setting and that is to go forward. She will continue to fight the same fights with the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility because one day she will want to bring enough people with her that the Tory party will come round to her way of thinking.”

But in the meantime, the former prime minister is looking to raise her brand in the US, cultivating relationships with pro-Trump right-wing think-tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation and, according to one former adviser, “giving interviews with increasingly niche podcasts and YouTubers”.

Trump gave his public backing to Truss during her short premiership in 2022, stating that he thought “very highly” of her and supported her programme of tax cuts for the highest earners.

Her “mini-Budget” spooked the bond markets leading to her being forced to sack her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng before eventually resigning after just 45 days in office.

While no member of the Labour Government was invited to the inauguration, former Tory prime minister Boris Johnson was there, along with Reform leader Nigel Farage.