The King will use the state banquet and a private tea to talk “frankly” with Donald Trump following a briefing by Britain’s new ambassador to Washington ahead of his upcoming state visit to the US.
The rising threat of an attack by Vladimir Putin and the importance of the Nato alliance in countering it, as well as repairing the fractured special relationship between Britain and the US, are likely to be on a list of talking points given to Charles III to raise with Trump during their behind the scenes conversations in Washington.
Former royal aides and diplomats who have worked on previous overseas tours say the 77-year-old monarch, a statesman for more than half a century, will not shy away from controversial subjects even during social events during the four-day visit, dispelling a common myth that the monarch and his family are required to stick to small talk on these occasions.
With UK-US relations at a low ebb, the King’s visit is by common consent the riskiest foreign trip of his reign.
The 27-30 April visit by the King and Queen Camilla to Washington, New York, and Virginia will, like all such trips, be carefully choreographed and designed to limit the risk of any unforeseen mishaps or controversies.
However, although the focus will be on celebrating the breadth and depth of the relationship between Britain and the US over the 250 years since the declaration of American independence in 1776, rather than current disagreements between the two governments, the King will try to get the UK’s worldview across to the US President, sources said.
“The King is a statesman in his own right. He won’t be afraid to voice his own opinions in private,” one diplomatic source said. “He’ll get a briefing from the Foreign Office and perhaps some talking points.” Sir Christian Turner, Britain’s new ambassador to Washington, is expected to have a session with the monarch to brief him on Britain’s key objectives for the visit.
King will discuss Britain’s and his own personal perspectives
Charles will make two big speeches, in an address to Congress and at a White House state banquet, that will in essence have been written by the British Government with some input from his private secretary Sir Clive Alderton, himself a highly experienced diplomat and former ambassador.
But there will also be opportunities for the monarch and President to chat in private: at a tea with their wives, during a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office, and during the state banquet.
On Trump’s first state visit to Britain, he complained that Charles had lectured him over global warming during a private meeting that lasted 70 minutes longer than scheduled. “Nothing but climate change,” he said.
At Windsor Castle last September on his second state visit to Britain, the two men spent much of their private time discussing the need for a UK-US trade deal. “I think he was more interested in trade,” Trump said afterwards. “You know he loves the environment, he likes to talk about the environment but he was more interested in trade than anything else.”
But the President also had a private meeting with the Prince and Princess of Wales and spent much of the state banquet that evening deep in conversation with Kate, who sat one side of him while the King was on the other.
Chris Ruddy, chief executive of the American conservative media outlet Newsmax, noted at the time that the President was “fascinated” and “really engaged” in his discussion with the princess. While some guests engaged in small talk, that was not the case with the royals. Neither side disclosed what Trump and the princess discussed afterwards but it is thought that the topics included her campaigning work and UK Government objectives for the visit.
In Washington, Charles’s best chance to lobby Trump, an ardent admirer of the monarchy, on the need to support Ukraine and Nato, ease tensions with Keir Starmer’s Government, and pursue other British goals will come during their bilateral meeting in the Oval Office, which will be private after a brief photocall.
Sir Peter Westmacott, a former courtier and British ambassador to Washington, expects the two men to talk frankly. “It rather depends, I suppose, on the chemistry and the desire of the individuals to address it,” he told the BBC earlier this week, adding that he would be surprised if controversial topics did not come up in private.
It was the same with the late Queen, even though she was a model of discretion in public. Earlier this week, Susan Page, Washington bureau chief of USA Today, revealed in a new book, The Queen and Her Presidents, that in April 2016 Elizabeth II told Barack Obama that it was hard to understand why David Cameron had called the Brexit referendum without being sure of the answer.
Drawings, timetables and detailed briefing notes
The schedule for this trip has been planned for months and by the time they get off their plane, the King and Queen will have been drilled via briefing notes so detailed that they will list everyone they are expected to meet, with a timetable and diagrams showing where their limousine draws up at each engagement and from which car door they will exit.
But, although there is no real interaction with the public until they get to Virginia on the last day, Charles and Camilla know that their staff cannot control every eventuality. They face the risk that the visit could be derailed by a volatile President whose angry and unpredictable outbursts about everything and everyone from Starmer to the Pope have prompted speculation that he has dementia or some other form of neurological disorder or mental illness.
British officials hope the President will be respectful because of his admiration for the King and the institution of monarchy but, unlike government ministers who are coached by advisers before questions in parliament, there is no tradition of courtiers practising with their royal bosses for awkward interventions. “I’ve never heard of it personally,” one former senior aide said.
The results can perhaps be seen in Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s disastrous 2019 Newsnight interview and the way that both William and Kate and Edward and Sophie were wrong-footed by politicians talking to them about plans to abolish the monarchy in their countries during Caribbean tours in 2022.
However, Dickie Arbiter, who worked as a press secretary for Queen Elizabeth and the then Prince Charles from 1988 to 2000, believes the King will use his experience and skills to try to smooth over some of the current political divisions between the two governments.
He is also confident that whatever Trump does, the monarch will not be fazed or need any coaching to prepare for an unpleasant surprise. “Charles is an old hand at this. When you compare like for like, many government ministers are new to the job and here today, gone tomorrow. Charles has been doing this for more than 50 years and will know more about it than anyone at the Foreign Office,” he said. “He’s a wily diplomat; he’s not stupid.”
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