POLITICO Europe political correspondent Sam Blewett reported that Mr Trump indicated he would like to take the new Prime Minister up on the offer, citing an official with knowledge of the call. Mr Burnham was previously Mayor of Greater Manchester, a region home to around three million people, before his return to frontline national politics and subsequent rise to Prime Minister. The invitation could now pave the way for a visit by Mr Trump to the city, although no date or further details of a potential trip have been announced. Relations between Donald Trump and the new Prime Minister seemingly got off to a bumpy start last month. Asked what he knew about Mr Burnham, the US President admitted he knew little about the then-prospective Prime Minister, saying: “I don’t know, I think I see that he was, I guess, the mayor of a town.
“I hear he’s extremely liberal, extremely, so that means he probably won’t open up the North Sea.”
In a lengthy post on Truth Social, the President claimed Mr Burnham had “stated” that he would be “opening up, all the way, the invaluable North Sea Oil”, although the incoming Prime Minister had made no such commitment.
He has not, however, pledged to issue new licences or open up the North Sea “all the way”, as Mr Trump claimed.
Meanwhile, Mr Burnham’s own views of the US President have shifted significantly over the years.
In 2017, he said he would refuse to meet Mr Trump as a “matter of principle” if the President visited Greater Manchester, telling the Manchester Evening News: “Donald Trump’s presence in Greater Manchester would go against the values that people here stand for.”
That same year, Mr Burnham called for the offer of a state visit to be withdrawn after Mr Trump criticised London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s response to the London Bridge terror attack.
Four years later, on the day of the January 6 Capitol riot in 2021, Mr Burnham wrote on X that any UK politician who “gave Trump the time of day should be ashamed right now.”
However, Mr Burnham has appeared to soften his stance towards the President more recently. In an interview aired on July 15, he said he would deal with Mr Trump “very upfront in the same way I think he likes people to deal with him.”
Further details of the latest conversation between the two leaders are yet to be released.
However, the call could offer an early indication of how relations between Mr Burnham’s new government and the Trump administration will develop.