Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves delivers a speech in the media briefing room of 9 Downing Street, London, Tuesday Nov. 4, 2025. Rachel Reeves has hit out at Donald Trump by declaring his war in Iran a “mistake”.
The chancellor had already made her frustration with the conflict painfully clear by admitting she is “angry” over the US president’s decision to go to war without a clear exit plan and calling the conflict a “folly”.
Reeves went even further while speaking at an event in Washington on Wednesday,
She said: “I think it was a mistake to end those [talks with Iran] and to enter into conflict, because I’m not convinced that we are safer today that we were a few weeks ago.”
In a sign of just how strained the “special relationship” between the UK and the US is, Reeves pointed out how the war had led to Iran’s decision to close the Strait of Hormuz – a major oil shipping lane.
“We had the waterway open a few weeks ago,” the chancellor told the CNBC Invest in America conference. “So, if now the objective is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz? Well, it was open at the beginning of the conflict.”
Reeves claimed the absence of clear war goals meant the conflict was likely to be long and not curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
She continued: “They don’t have a nuclear weapon today. And what do people think is the best way to stop that from happening?
“Is it through conflict or is it through diplomacy? And I believe it is through diplomacy.
“There was a diplomatic channel open. The discussions, formal discussions were happening.”
Reeves is in Washington to meet her international counterparts at a series of meetings held by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The chancellor said she would be making it clear that the war would hit the cost of living around the world.
“We feel very strongly in our national interest that de-escalation is now the key priority. That’s what businesses and families are telling me back home and that’s the message I’m coming here to Washington to give this week,” Reeves said.
But the chancellor also insisted she remained on good terms with the US treasury secretary Scott Bessent, saying: “Friends are allowed to disagree on things. When you are friends you can speak your truth and deliver that fair message.”
Her words come as pressure grows on the government to continue balancing the books while the war pushes oil prices up.
The IMF predicted this week that the UK economy will suffer more than any other major country due to Trump’s war in Iran.
Meanwhile, the president has grown increasingly irate towards the UK after the government refused to send the Royal Navy to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open and rejected America’s request to use British military bases for pre-emptive strikes on Iran.
Trump has compared prime minister Keir Starmer to Neville Chamberlain, who championed the Nazi appeasement policy before World War 2, and threatened to rip up the UK-US trade deal.
But the PM insisted he was “not going to yield” to that trade pressure on Wednesday.
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