Winston Churchill created the special relationship. Could Donald Trump kill it?

Few diplomatic partnerships have been declared to be on life support quite as often as the so-called ‘special relationship’ between the United Kingdom and the United States.

The phrase refers to the theoretically unique presumption of shared understanding and cooperation that has existed between the two countries in the decades since the Second World War.

But did the special relationship ever actually exist? And if it does, what exactly does it mean in the cold light of day?

“This is a perennial subject of discussion,” says historian Sam Edwards, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. “You could probably go back to the 1960s to find the first obituary of the special relationship – the first moment where commentators were asking the question: is the special relationship done and dusted, or can it survive?”

Those debates have resurfaced repeatedly whenever London and Washington DC have had public differences over foreign policy or military strategy. It’s a question that has arisen once again in March 2026, as President Trump has instigated a new wave of military operations in the Middle East, albeit without Downing Street’s unconditional support.

Winston Churchill coins the phrase

The term ‘special relationship’ has been in the political vocabulary for 80 years, making an entrance in the early days of the Cold War.

In March 1946, Winston Churchill travelled to Fulton, Missouri to deliver a speech formally titled Sinews of Peace. Churchill was no longer the UK’s prime minister at the time – he had lost the 1945 British general election – but he remained one of the most influential political figures of the era.

The Second World War had ended less than a year earlier, but tensions between the Soviet Union and western powers were already hardening along ideological faultlines. Churchill used the speech to warn about Soviet expansion across eastern Europe, and what he saw as the impending threat of communism.

As Sam Edwards explains, the speech is “famous for two evocative phrases: one is ‘iron curtain’, the other is ‘special relationship’.”

The phrase “iron curtain” described the emerging division of Europe between communist east and democratic west. The “special relationship,” meanwhile, referred to the close partnership that Churchill believed should bind Great Britain and the United States together in the postwar world.

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Churchill imagined this alliance resting on shared language, political traditions and deep military cooperation. The two countries had fought closely together during the Second World War, sharing intelligence, coordinating military planning and collaborating on technological projects such as nuclear weapons research.

In reality, however, the concept was always more complicated than the rhetoric suggested.

What does the “special relationship” mean?

“Ever since Churchill articulated it in 1946, there have been questions about what it looks like, what it involves, what examples there are of it in action,” Edwards says.

At certain moments, the alliance has appeared exceptionally close, especially during joint military operations or intelligence cooperation, as with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. At other times, it’s seemed less certain.

Indeed, the first major test arrived surprisingly quickly.

In 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of Egypt, nationalised the Suez Canal, which had long been controlled by British and French interests. The canal was one of the most important shipping routes in the world, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea and providing a crucial link between Europe and Asia.

Britain and France responded by secretly coordinating a military intervention with Israel in an attempt to regain control of the waterway.

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The United States strongly opposed the invasion.

“In 1956, the Suez Crisis was a first big crisis in the US–UK relationship,” Edwards explains. Washington applied intense financial and diplomatic pressure on Britain to withdraw its forces. The administration of US president Dwight D Eisenhower feared that the invasion would destabilise the Middle East and push newly independent states toward the Soviet Union.

“The Americans were quite forceful in demanding that the British army withdraw from the Suez Canal after the nationalisation of the canal zone,” he says.

The crisis is often interpreted by historians as a symbol of Britain’s declining global power in the postwar era.

“In the aftermath there were discussions: what does the special relationship look like now?” Edwards says. “Is it going to survive any longer?”

It did. But the crisis made one thing clear. In this relationship, the United States had become the dominant partner.

How Vietnam became another test

Questions about the alliance resurfaced again in the 1960s during the Vietnam War.

The United States, then led by President Lyndon B Johnson, sought international support for its expanding military intervention in southeast Asia. Britain’s Labour government, headed by Harold Wilson, came under pressure to demonstrate solidarity with military backing.

“However, Harold Wilson persistently refused to send British troops to Southeast Asia,” says Edwards, “despite the fact that Lyndon B Johnson asked on various occasions.”

The decision created yet further diplomatic tension between London and Washington. But, Edwards argues, part of the reason the relationship has survived repeated crises is that it operates on along two distinct axes.

“One is a description of a functional relationship, especially between US and UK intelligence agencies and their militaries.” For example, the two countries are central members of the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance, which also includes Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

In this sense, the phrase refers to concrete cooperation: shared intelligence networks, joint military planning and close defence collaboration. The two countries coordinate on nuclear strategy, share classified information and frequently operate together in military coalitions.

But there’s also a second dimension.

“The other part is that it’s an idea, an image, a discursive construct,” Edwards says.

Politicians often invoke the phrase symbolically to signal shared democratic values and cultural ties. This rhetorical layer can survive, even when foreign and military policy disagreements spill over into the public sphere.

“The interesting thing about what we’re witnessing right now is the erosion of both of those [dimensions of the special relationship],” Edwards says.

Recent debates about the use of British military assets by the American military have raised questions about the functional side of the alliance. At the same time, political rhetoric has begun to harden. President Trump appeared to criticise UK prime minister Keir Starmer in March 2026, saying: “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”

“The irony within all of this is that the person driving what looks like the erosion of the special relationship is himself a contemporary of that relationship,” Edwards says of Trump.

Churchill delivered his Fulton speech in March 1946. “Trump goes back to June 1946.”

In other words, both the concept and one of its most recent critics were born in the same year. That’s not the only irony. Edwards also notes that the current US president is the first since Woodrow Wilson to have a British mother.

Still, after eight decades, the special relationship has survived multiple crises – all of which seemed like they might bring it to an end.

As to whether the current tensions will prove more serious, Edwards is uncertain.

“Can it outlast this? We shall see. I think it will, in some form or shape, but I think it is going to look different in the years to come.”

Matt Elton was speaking to Sam Edwards on the HistoryExtra podcast series History Behind the Headlines. Listen to the full conversation.