SEATTLE – King Charles’s first official state visit to the US next month has still not been confirmed, but both countries are preparing nevertheless.
British officials hope the King can revive the so-called “special relationship”, which has gone somewhat awry in recent months, when he meets Donald Trump on a three-day trip expected to take in New York and Washington, DC.
Relations between Trump and Sir Keir Starmer have soured recently, in part because of the Prime Minister’s refusal to send UK naval vessels to help end Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Charles, who is also expected to address a joint session of Congress, could be key to rescuing the situation, according to Nile Gardiner, a Washington-based former adviser to Margaret Thatcher.
“Of all foreign state visits, this one is the most significant for the President,” said Gardiner, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank.
“President Trump is a huge admirer of the British monarchy, and, in my view, the most pro-British US president since Ronald Reagan.”
Gardiner said: “This is a very tense time in terms of relations between the White House and Downing Street.”
From the UK’s perspective, he told The i Paper: “They’re trying to clearly rebuild the special relationship”.
He insisted that whatever harsh words Trump may sometimes utter, “there’s no bigger US ally than the United Kingdom”. And indeed, despite Trump’s criticism over Starmer’s initial reluctance to assist in the Iran conflict, the UK has been increasingly drawn into the war.
Trump is a great admirer of the royals and is thought to have modelled his own family on the Windsors (Photo: Reuters/Toby Melville/Pool/File Photo)Shannon Felton Spence, director of global communications at the Belfer Centre at Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, believes that Trump has “almost modelled his own family, or his family’s legacy, around how he sees the Windsors”.
She believes Trump, a consummate host, will go out of his way to make the royal couple feel welcome. He will also see Charles as his equal, unlike any purely political leader, and try to curry favour from him.
A former British diplomat who served in the US, told The i Paper that any visit from the King could bring considerable benefits to both nations as long as it was handled well.
Trump, the diplomat said, was a “person to person” individual, who clearly got on very well with the late Queen.
“They ought to lead on the people to people stuff,” the former envoy suggested.
Queen Elizabeth II wielded this soft power with the US on six official trips to the country, including three state visits. She also made a number of private visits.
Fifty years ago, she attended a ceremony to mark the 200th anniversary of US independence. Charles’s visit is pegged to this year’s 250th anniversary.
Asked how Washington viewed the potential visit from King Charles, the ex-diplomat added: “Americans love the royals”.
However, this picture has grown more mixed. A YouGov poll from 2023 found that about as many view Americans viewed the King unfavourably (40 per cent) as favourably (39 per cent) , while about half of Americans (47 per cent) saw the British royal family as a mix of good role models and bad.
King Charles and Queen Camilla with Trump and First Lady Melania Trump at the state banquet at Windsor Castle (Picture: Aaron Chown/Pool via Reuters)Charles’s visit carries no small amount of controversy: some believe the monarch will be forced to answer questions about his brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and whether he and others in the Palace were part of a cover-up of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking crimes.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, long stripped of his royal status and under police investigation, has always denied any wrongdoing.
Still, as many as 20 per cent of Americans said they would watch Charles’ coronation in the 2023 poll, and television series such as The Crown are viewed by millions of Americans.
A whopping 17 million viewers tuned in to watch Oprah Winfrey’s 2021 interview with Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, in which the King’s second son made a series of allegations about the Palace, ranging from racism to lack of emotional support, which led them to give up their royal lives.
While there has been talk that King Charles could pay a visit to see Prince Harry, who lives in northern California, the former diplomat who spoke to The i Paper saw that as unlikely.
Spence, of the Harvard Kennedy School, points out that many US cities have, a little ironically, recently been holding so-called “No Kings” marches to protest Trump’s alleged authoritarianism. Charles might spot some of them if his security detail lets them get near enough.
“I anticipate there will be protests at many stops, particularly related to allegations against his brother and the Epstein scandal,” she added.
It is hard to see the visit of Charles, 77, and Camilla, 78, generating that much excitement. The King is unlikely to recreate the buzz surrounding his late former wife, Diana, Princess of Wales, who in 1985 earned headlines around the world when at a gala dinner hosted by the Reagans, she danced with movie star John Travolta while wearing a midnight blue velvet gown.
Diana, Princess of Wales, dances with John Travolta at the White House during an official dinner on 9 November 1985 in Washington, DC while President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan look on. (Photo: Pete Souza/The White House via Getty Images)Political historian Daniel Bessner believes Trump could be quite tough when it comes to practical benefits for Britain.
Bessner, who teaches at the University of Washington in Seattle, said it was possible that the US could soon move further away from Nato and the EU, offering the UK a chance to reaffirm the special relationship “that has united the two countries since the middle of the 20th century”.
But he added: “The King, though, won’t have much influence over that.”
Gisele McAuliffe, a DC resident who lived in London for two years in her 20s, told The i Paper she was not especially interested in the British monarchy, though over the years she has followed its scandals as a “late night habit”.
She said most people will be watching to see if Trump or the King say anything controversial or make a “faux pas”.
Ms McAuliffe, who is in her sixties and works in PR, added: “If President Trump says something that is considered scandalous, there will be a lot of press.”
But she said that in the US, “it will be more about the President and less about the King and Queen”.
Gary Officer, a British citizen who has lived in DC for 22 years, said: “Queen Elizabeth certainly had a halo that that generates a significant deference towards the monarchy.
“As you’ve seen in the UK, the King and Prince William are trying to earn that back. So the monarchy is almost the same position in the US today as it is currently in the UK.”
News of the visit, he predicted, would be largely shaped by whatever is dominating the news agenda in the US that day, be it the Middle East or the Epstein files. “That will supersede everything else,” added Officer, who works in public policy.
When it comes to the monarchy, he believes, most Americans are “indifferent to notions of nostalgia and sentiment”.
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