Keir Starmer corrected Donald Trump over the money Europe has given to Ukraine to help it fight back against Russia this afternoon.

It was the second time the US president has been fact-checked over the exact same claim this week – French president Emmanuel Macron corrected him on Monday.

Touching on his plan to set up a deal to share Ukraine’s mineral wealth – and recoup some of the US’s military loans to Kyiv – Trump told journalists in the Oval Office: “We wanted to have a little bit of what the European nations have.

“They get their money back, we don’t get our money back.

“Biden made a deal, he put in $350bn and I thought it was a very unfair situation.”

But Starmer jumped in: “We’re not getting all of ours. Quite a bit of ours was gifted, it was given, there were some loans, but mainly it was gifted actually.”

This moment echoed one of Macron’s viral moments from his trip to the US.

When Trump said Europe would get “their money back” from Ukraine, Macron replied: “No, in fact, to be frank, we paid. We paid 60% of the total effort. Like the US, loans, guarantees, grants, and we provided real money.”

Even so, Starmer’s response to Trump’s same Ukraine claim was a little surprising, especially considering ministers have been emphasising how Starmer will act with great diplomacy during this visit.

Environment secretary Steve Reed told reporters this afternoon: “I don’t think it is for the prime minister on any visit to be ‘fact-checking’ on any visit, as you put it, his host, wherever that might be.

“It is for the British prime minister to advocate for the interests of the United Kingdom in a way that is most likely to secure the outcomes that we want.

“So, that is the approach the prime minister will be taking.”

Starmer is trying to be very diplomatic during this trip, so he can persuade Trump to offer security guarantees to Europe in the event that Vladimir Putin tried to seize more land even after a peace deal is secured in Ukraine.

But Starmer also corrected vice-president JD Vance, after he lectured Europe – in particularly the UK – for supposedly moving away from “free speech” during the Munich security conference earlier this month.

Asked if he stood by those values still, he said “there have been infringements on free speech” which impact American technology companies and therefore US citizens.

Starmer then cut in: “We’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom. And it will last for a very, very long time.

“Certainly we wouldn’t want to reach across US systems, and we don’t, and that’s absolutely right, but in relation to free speech in the UK, I’m very proud of our history there.”