King prepares for diplomatic tightrope ahead of state visit to the US

The king was “absolutely furious” when Donald Trump suggested in January that British troops had stayed away from the frontline in Afghanistan. According to one friend, Charles “was bouncing up and down, insisting he was going to ring the president himself to say we could not have sacrificed more or done more”.

In the end, the monarch – who is head of the armed forces and a former naval officer – was persuaded not to call Trump to berate him personally. Instead, a message conveying his displeasure was delivered through the “appropriate” diplomatic channels and the president apologised the next day. “The king was very very angry and Trump will know that,” the friend said.

As Buckingham Palace prepares with trepidation for this week’s state visit to the US, one former courtier said the monarch “will have to be the bigger man” and avoid mentioning the president’s slur on the British military when he goes to the White House. Charles, who has strong views about architecture, will also need to bite his tongue about Trump’s plans to turn the east wing into a giant ballroom.

Diplomatic decorum will be maintained as the king and queen navigate their way through dinners, teas and garden parties on a tour timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of American independence. “Obviously, Charles will not display a flicker of what he really feels about Donald Trump,” said one retired diplomat of the monarch, who is said to “viscerally” despise the president.

The tension bubbling beneath the surface is indicative of the wider rift underlying the trip at a time when relations between the US and the UK are at their lowest point in decades. David Manning, who was British ambassador to Washington during the last state visit to the US by Queen Elizabeth, described the contrast between that tour in 2007 and this one. He recalled how President George W Bush included his father, the first President Bush, and his mother Barbara in the programme. They accompanied the queen and Prince Philip on a visit to Washington’s second world war memorial, which “gave a warmth, an almost family feel, to the event”, Manning said.

“The two couples spoke to veterans, and later reminisced together about their wartime experiences over drinks at the embassy residence.There’s no such backdrop this time. Instead, the king is being asked to use his diplomatic skills to help stabilise a bilateral relationship battered by Trump’s attacks on the prime minister and threats to Nato. The relationship has become transactional. It’s no longer based on a common outlook and underpinned by shared values. What’s ‘special’ now is how difficult it is to maintain.”

Trump has become increasingly vocal in his criticisms of Keir Starmer, declaring that he is “no Winston Churchill” and describing the government’s immigration and energy policies as “insane”. In one interview this month, he veered between praising the “wonderful” king and denouncing the prime minister’s “tragic mistakes”.

The shift in mood is clear on the British side too. During the president’s visit to the UK in September last year, Starmer was “unamused” when Eluned Morgan, the Welsh Labour leader, refused to attend the state banquet at Windsor Castle. “He thought it was a sign she wasn’t serious,” one Labour source said. Now the prime minister rarely misses an opportunity to distance himself from a president who is loathed by the British public.

There is little prospect of an immediate “reset” of the so-called special relationship, but the hope in Whitehall is that Charles’s journey across the Atlantic may at least provide a brief respite from the president’s late-night social media tirades. “Trump has shown himself to be an utterly unreliable ally, I don’t think the king can do much about that, but what he can do is provide a diversion,” one source said. “Trump is very much like a kitten following a laser and the king is a very useful laser.”

During the four-day visit, the royals’ public appearances will be kept to a minimum. There will be no joint press conference in the Oval Office and calls for the king and queen to meet victims of Jeffrey Epstein have been rejected on the grounds that any public comments could derail the legal process. Instead, Charles will be introduced to young Americans who have been supported by employment programmes run through his charity, the King’s Trust, at a reception in New York.

A palace source admitted the circumstances were “challenging” but insisted the Trumps were “delightful guests” when they came to Britain. “It all went very smoothly and we enter into the outward return visit very much in that spirit,” the courtier said. “As with all state visits, the king goes out there on the advice of government and to support government objectives. His majesty will attempt to uphold that endeavour as best as he possibly can.”

Starmer – reeling from the fallout of his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as British ambassador to Washington – is determined to do everything he can to protect the king from embarrassment. During his own visit to the White House, the prime minister gave Trump a letter from the monarch inviting him to the UK. He had planned to deliver it in private – “the king was not wildly enthusiastic about the whole thing and Keir thought it would be embarrassing for him to see it televised,” one Starmer ally explained. It was Trump, the reality TV president, who insisted that the envelope should be handed over only once the cameras were rolling.

Demands for Charles’s state visit to be cancelled have grown since the president launched military action against Iran. An Opinium poll for The Observer found that only 37% think the trip should go ahead as planned, with 47% believing it should be cancelled or postponed. Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said: “Trump is out of control. We shouldn’t be rewarding him for starting an illegal war, causing a cost of living crisis, and insulting our great country.”

Those who know the king well say he is taking the responsibility of embarking on the trip at such a perilous moment for the world “very seriously”. He has long had a keen interest in both the Middle East and Ukraine and is deeply concerned about the economic and cultural consequences of the current conflicts.

Trump insisted last week that the Duke of Sussex was “not speaking for the UK” after Prince Harry called on the “American leadership” to “honour its international treaty obligations” in Ukraine. But insiders say the king “always goes out of his way to make time for Zelensky” and feels strongly that Ukraine must be supported in its war against Russia.

Another Whitehall source said Charles was “appalled” by the president’s threat to bring about the end of Iranian civilisation. The king, who believes deeply in inter-faith collaboration, is also understood to have been horrified by Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo with whom he prayed in the Sistine Chapel last year.

Kim Darroch, who was British ambassador to Washington when the king visited the US as prince of Wales during Trump’s first term, said Charles will be well aware of the significance of his upcoming tour. “Part of him will think – ‘this is a pretty difficult thing I’ve been given to do’. But part of him will think ‘I may be able to make a difference here’.”

He said Charles would not shy away from difficult subjects, pointing out that in his previous meetings he has highlighted his concerns about climate change, which the president does not think is a problem. “The reality is the king has different views from Trump on many issues but has mastered the art of disagreeing agreeably – he does it in a way which doesn’t offend or alienate the other side,” Darroch said.

“I think his not bringing an oversized ego into the room helps, as does his different role – he’s not saying ‘this is how I run my country and you need to follow my example’.”

Another retired diplomat said Trump seemed “starstruck” by the royal family, which made the king almost uniquely placed to get through to him. “Trump is a bully and a narcissist, he plays games, he’s performative but he likes to be on very good terms with the people he admires,” he said. “The king will be very well briefed. He will not give him a lecture about being rude to the Pope but what he might well try and do is talk to him about why handing a third of Ukraine on a plate to dictator Vladimir Putin is not in America’s interests.

“He’s a man of great experience who knows the Middle East. He won’t say ‘it was completely dumb to start this war without any legal framework or objective’, but there are conversations he can have about how to deal with other people when you’re trying to achieve a certain outcome.”

Peter Ricketts, the former head of the Foreign Office and national security adviser, said the importance of the visit was to “get above and beyond the politics of the moment. The king is there to symbolise the long, deep relationship between two peoples, beyond Trump and the tensions and strife of the moment.”

The monarch will not in his view be willing to limit himself to polite small talk. “Knowing the man, as I do a bit, he does have strong convictions,” Ricketts said. “If we listen out carefully in speeches, we will probably hear some carefully chosen words about the importance of alliances and a system of international rules. Just by his very presence he reminds Americans of duty, long service, selflessness, putting the nation’s interests first. It doesn’t need anything said by him or his entourage to bring out the contrast with Trump.”

In Washington, the king will address a joint session of Congress, giving him the chance to speak directly to Democrats and Republicans about the enduring bonds between the US and the UK and the values the two nations have always shared.

The constitutional historian Anthony Seldon believes he must seize the moment. “He’ll never have a bigger opportunity to make an impact – the US was created 250 years ago to break away from the king,” he said. “It’ll take a king to remind the US why the US was created in July 1776.”

Photograph by Jordan Pettitt/Getty, Jabin Botsford/Washington Post via Getty