𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

It has been suggested that President Donald Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, could be one of the reasons why the USA did not react as strongly as expected to the UK’s decision to sanction individuals and entities engaged in building West Bank settlements. Following the announcement made by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband earlier this week, that included a ban on the advertisement of illegal settlements in the UK, it was expected Trump would side with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and criticise Andy Burnham’s.

However, when Trump eventually commented on the matter, he gave an unusually understated response, something that has baffled observers. Trump said: “Well, I’ve just seen it, and I’ll be speaking to Israel…I understand exactly what’s going on, but I want to find out why all of a sudden does that happen.”

Following his uncharacteristically muted response, it has been suggested by a diplomatic source that Melania Trump had a role to play, given her desire to help children.

Over the past 18 months, Melania has chaired a UN Security Council meeting on children in wars and recently announced a Fostering the Future partnership to help fund scholarships for children in foster care.

It has been suggested, therefore, that Melania may have convinced Trump not to take a hard stance on the UK’s new sanctions against Israeli settlements because of the impact they have on families and children who have had to leave their homes.

The source told the i: “Trump does not like Israeli settlements. He has been successfully briefed by Melania and Jared Kushner about settlements. When it comes to suffering kids, she gets involved.”

Trump isn’t the only senior official to have addressed the UK’s latest sanctions, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio giving a similarly quiet response.

Speaking to members of the press, he admitted that he had been briefed by the Labour government before the announcement was made.

He explained: “We don’t want to see anything destabilising going on right now in the West Bank with so much going on in the region. Obviously, we’re not going to do what the UK did. We were made aware that they were going to make this decision. We heard their arguments as to why.”

Mr Rubio and Trump’s respective comments on the matter come at a time of great speculation around the White House as questions continue to abound about Melania’s lack of public appearances this year compared to her husband’s aide Natalie Harp.

The Daily Beast reported that Melania had appeared in public just 38 times between the start of the year and early August. Speculation that she may have successfully briefed Trump to remain quiet in response to the UK’s new sanctions raises further questions about how much influence she has, despite her lack of official engagements.