Quite the outreach and attempt to be seen to understand Donald Trump and his success, from a man who once called him, external a “tyrant in a toupee”.
But privately there is a recognition things aren’t likely to be smooth.
Take the recent row about alleged interference by the Labour Party in the US election after an injudicious social media post by a Labour staffer.
“It just shows you he doesn’t give a stuff about his relationship with the UK,” one former diplomat told me.
So prepare for the opposite of smooth – bumpy, noisy and transactional – finding issues where they can do a deal with Trump, who reveres his capacity as a deal maker.
For this reason, we have already seen Lammy attempt to set out an understanding about Donald Trump’s instincts.
An understanding that Europe has to pay more to fund its own defence.
An understanding that America’s attention is increasingly on Asia, not least because, as Lammy has put it, “the Chinese navy is now the largest in the world and Chinese shipbuilding capacity 230 times larger than the United States.”
And an understanding that, bluntly, Europe cares more about Ukraine than the United States does.
“We want America to support Kyiv as much as it can, but the differences between the Republicans and the Democrats shouldn’t be exaggerated,” is how one Whitehall source put it.
Up to a point: there will be grave concerns in European capitals and beyond that this result could leave Ukraine imperilled.
And that is on top of the prospect of sky-high import taxes, or tariffs, let alone the minute by minute verbal explosions on social media.
So, the mitigations for this moment have continued apace: the foreign secretary recently met Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The government has also been cultivating relationships with Robert O’Brien, who was national security adviser in Donald Trump’s first term and Elbridge Colby, who some think could be his next national security adviser., external
But we are soon likely to find out to what extent any of this preparatory work counts for anything.
