Letter: The USA has always put its own interests first

With regard to the letter ‘Long past time that the UK put the UK first’ (Stevan Patterson, March 4).

What an extraordinary idea. How long must it take for the British to learn lessons from their own history?

The USA has always put its own interests first. As the British were facing the Luftwaffe in the skies above Kent and London in the fight to the death for freedom in Europe against Nazi Germany with the aid of the free French, Poland, Czechoslovakia Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and our allies in the summer and autumn of 1940 the Americans were sunning themselves on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico and making films in Hollywood. Some good films admittedly.

The freedom-loving Americans came into the war only after Pearl Harbour and for their own national advantages.

After 1945 with the UK exhausted by its war effort our peace-loving Americans sent us the bill. A bill which it took us until 2006 to pay off; see the letter by Mary Riley from Kirk Bramwith, South Yorkshire, to the Daily Telegraph (Monday March 3 2025, p.17).

At the time of writing the Chagos islands are sovereign British and Chagossian territory. We ought to send business-man Donald Trump the bill for the continued use of Diego Garcia as a military base in the Indian Ocean. And we must sack Sir Keir Starmer if he wishes to give them at British taxpayers' expense to Mauritius and Chinese and Indian influence.

Meanwhile the gallant Ukrainians are paying the true price for freedom in Europe as we did in 1939-1945. Not in money, but in blood.

Dr Gerald Morgan, Dublin 4