ROYAL FLUSH: The British government is hauling out the big guns — King Charles III and top members of the royal family — ahead of U.S. President’s Donald Trump’s two-day state visit, which begins officially on Wednesday morning.
This visit is big — and unusual — in so many ways. It will be Trump’s second state visit, unprecedented for U.S. presidents serving two terms in office, and the stakes are higher than ever.
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The last time Trump visited was in 2018, pre-COVID-19 and before the wars and crises in Ukraine and the Middle East. It was a different time in America, too, with Trump more obsessed with building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border than with tariffs on imports.
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The stakes are particularly high for U.K. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, too. He personally delivered the king’s invitation to Trump during a visit to Washington, D.C. in February and, in doing so, helped the U.K. to swerve the worst of the president’s tariffs.
Trump’s strong ties to Scotland have also helped. Trump’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was born on the Isle of Lewis, in Scotland, and he has heavily invested in golf courses and hotels in Ayrshire and Aberdeenshire.
Prep for the visit had been running smoothly until last week when the U.K. ambassador to the U.S., Peter Mandelson, was fired after intimate correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted paedophile found dead in his jail cell in 2019, came to light.
Mandelson, a longtime Labour party strategist who has long been controversial, has a good relationship with Trump and was the man who first came up with the plan to present him with an invitation from the king for a second state visit.
Now, without a U.S. ambassador by his side, and the Labour Party fuming over the Mandelson debacle, Starmer is relying heavily on the king and his family to work their magic.
On Wednesday morning, King Charles, Queen Camilla, the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Trumps will all take part in a carriage procession from the grounds of the Windsor estate to the castle.
The procession will be accompanied by the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, members of the armed forces and three military bands. Following a ceremonial welcome, there will be lunch at the castle, and a visit to St. George’s Chapel, where the president and First Lady Melania Trump will lay a wreath on the tomb of Queen Elizabeth II, with whom Trump had a warm relationship.
On Wednesday evening, there will be a state banquet at the castle, with both Trump and the king set to give speeches.
On Thursday, Trump will decamp to Chequers, the U.K. prime minister’s official country residence, for a meeting with Starmer. The two world leaders will view the Sir Winston Churchill archives before holding a bilateral meeting, followed by a media conference.
The first lady, meanwhile, is set to view the Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House and the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, before joining the Princess of Wales at Frogmore Gardens for a meeting with the members of the Scout Association, of which Kate is a patron.
No public events are planned during the two-day visit, although the anti-Trump protesters are likely unfurling their banners and polishing their megaphones right now, as they prepare to counter the establishment’s charm offensive.