In July 1970, aged 21, Prince Charles paid his first official visit to the US. After watching a major league baseball game at RFK Stadium, Charles was invited to the Oval Office where he spent one hour and 20 minutes with President Richard Nixon discussing world affairs and the environment. In a rare interview in 2014, Charles told me Nixon advised him to be “a presence” and not to avoid controversy altogether.
As the King prepares for his state visit to the US later this month, Nixon’s words still hold good. Somehow Charles must avoid becoming a walk-on part in President Trump’s daily soap opera. He must flatter to deceive, carving out space to influence an unpredictable President while obscuring the inconvenient truth that Britain’s special relationship with the US is near rock bottom.
Public calls in the UK to cancel or delay the state visit have grown louder since Trump’s foul-mouthed tirade against the Iranian regime and his threats to bomb the country back into the Stone Ages. Politicians across the board expressed outrage at his casual comment that Iranian civilisation might sadly have to end – a comment the King, who once met the Shah and knows Iran well, would have found especially offensive. Yet his state visit was never really in doubt.
Despite America’s unprovoked war on Iran, which British public opinion emphatically opposes, there was never any question of cancelling the state visit. The 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States with the Declaration of Independence is a matter of celebration between peoples, not governments. As representative of the UK people, the King stands above the political fray – a distinction sometimes lost amid Trump’s insults about Sir Keir Starmer (“a loser”) and his belittling of Britain’s armed forces.
Those close to the King say he relishes the trickiest diplomatic challenge of his brief reign. Where many see landmines, Charles sees opportunity.
During his three-day visit, he will attend a state dinner at the White House and most likely travel to New York, scene of the 9/11 memorial. Boston, where the American revolution broke out against the King’s fifth great-grandfather George III, will not feature; nor will Montecito, California, home of Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and troublesome ex-royal couple who issued their own declaration of independence in 2024.
There will be plenty of time for small-talk with Trump. Charles, who has strong views about architecture, harmony and “grammatical ground rules” would normally have choice words to say about the East Wing demolition site which Trump wants to turn into a giant ballroom. He might also wince on entering the refurbished Oval Office which these days is looking like a Liberace film set. But discretion will carry the day. Besides, the King has a few trump cards of his own.
First, there is wisdom accumulated from visits to more than 100 countries and several thousand intimate conversations with world leaders, including, latterly, the Pope. Then there is the power of silence.
“Charles speaks very judiciously,” a friend explains, drawing a comparison with the boorish, bombastic president. “He is that rare person who makes his silence speak.”
In Washington, Charles will address a joint session of Congress, a privilege first extended in 1874 to King Kalākaua of Hawaii. As a set-piece, this is hard to beat. (Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has given no fewer than four such addresses, the all-time record.)
Here in the Capitol, which Maga hordes desecrated on 6 January, 2021, Charles has the opportunity to speak directly to Democrats and Republicans, not just about the enduring bonds between the UK and the US but also the importance of shared democratic values in a world in disarray.
Back in November, when he spoke at a state dinner at Windsor Castle marking Trump’s second state visit to the UK, an unprecedented honour extended to an American president, Charles delivered an eloquent tribute to UK-US relations. The two nations, he declared, were “the closest of kin”, despite being an ocean apart. Together they had fought and died to make the world safer and stronger.
Five months on, the gap between Trump’s America and Starmer’s Britain has grown wider, exacerbated by the President’s decision to join Israel in a war aimed at toppling the Iranian regime. The conflict, now paused, has driven up oil and food prices, wreaking havoc on the global economy.
Sir Alex Younger, former chief of MI6, has briefed the King on the Middle East and Ukraine, where the King’s sympathies lie unequivocally with the victim (Zelensky) not the perpetrator (Putin). He can also draw on Sir Clive Alderton, his private secretary and master wordsmith. It was Alderton who responded to Harry and Meghan’s allegations of racism within the royal family with the elegant phrase “recollections may vary”.
How will Trump respond to the British charm offensive? Insiders say that the President was visibly star-struck on his last state visit to the UK. Anxious not to repeat his faux-pas in 2019, when he touched the late Queen on the back as she rose to deliver a toast at the state banquet, Trump actually took direction from royal protocol.
Trump loves flummery and pageantry, especially when he is centre stage. Palace insiders calculate that the King’s reciprocal visit to the US will be a success for the simple reason that Trump wants it to be a success. “The King is to the manor born,” explains a long-time friend. “Trump is to Mar-a-Lago born. Therein lies the difference.”
A sprinkle of royal pixie-dust might even help Trump. His approval ratings have collapsed. The war was unpopular, the Republican party is restive. Trump’s expletive-ridden outbursts have raised questions about his mental stability. Democrats called him “deranged”, while Marjorie Taylor Greene, the one-time Maga supporter, branded Trump “unhinged” and said the 25th Amendment should be invoked to remove him from office on health grounds, a move that requires the approval of the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet – all of which at present seems unlikely.
The White House wants Trump to focus on the “affordability crisis” ahead of the critical mid-term elections in November, but Trump keeps wandering off script. The King’s visit will offer a welcome diversion, especially from the Epstein scandal, the bete-noire of Trump’s second-term presidency.
Trump himself cannot shake his association with Jeffrey Epstein, the New York financier and networker who ensnared the rich and famous. Apart from Lord Mandelson, the former UK ambassador in Washington, the list of VIP casualties features Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Charles’s younger brother, the Queen’s favourite son and now the blackest sheep in the royal family.
Pictures of (then Prince) Andrew in various compromising poses with young girls have appeared all over American media in the past year. The damage to the royal brand far exceeds anything achieved by Harry’s ghost-written autobiography Spare or Meghan’s hapless charity stunts.
By contrast, Charles, who has been battling cancer, is a walking example of the dignified working monarch. His state visit is a natural bridge to Prince William and Princess Catherine’s trip in July during the World Cup, a second opportunity for the royal family to participate in the 250th anniversary celebrations.
At 77, Charles is two years younger than Trump who will celebrate his 80th birthday in June. But compared with Trump, he is an elder statesman. His worldwide intelligence network comes with multiple perspectives – in contrast to the mono-thinking which Trump’s cult of personality has encouraged in his second term.
At base, however, the King is a realist. He can build on goodwill and identify common ground to solidify the special relationship. But Trump being Trump, everything could go up in smoke overnight. In the last resort, as ex-spy chief Sir Alex Younger often says, sentiment is never enough. “You have to be good, you have to be useful.”
That is the ultimate test for King Charles.
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