US President Donald Trump has said King Charles III and Queen Camilla’s state visit to the United States next week could help repair relations with Britain, giving a closely watched royal trip added diplomatic weight at a strained moment between the allies.
Asked in a phone interview with the BBC whether the visit could help mend the relationship, Trump said: "Absolutely. He’s fantastic. He’s a fantastic man. Absolutely the answer is yes." He added that he had known Charles for years and called the King "a brave man" and "a great man."
The four-day visit begins Monday in Washington, D.C., where Charles and Camilla are scheduled to meet Trump at the White House. The King is also due to hold a private meeting with the president and address Congress, before the royal couple travel on to New York, Virginia and Bermuda.
A ceremonial trip with political weight
The visit has been framed by the Foreign Office as a commemoration of the 250th anniversary of US independence and a celebration of the countries’ shared prosperity, security and history. But the timing has made it more than a ceremonial exchange.
Trump has sharply criticized Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s government on several fronts, including Britain’s response to the war in Iran. In the BBC interview, Trump said he did not need UK or allied involvement in Iran, but said they "should’ve been there" and described his calls for support as "more of a test." Starmer has said Britain will not be drawn into a wider conflict and has defended his decisions as being based on the British national interest.
The president has also linked Starmer’s political standing to domestic UK policy choices. After writing on Truth Social that Starmer had "plenty of time to recover" from what Trump called a poor choice in appointing Lord Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US, Trump told the BBC that Starmer could recover if he opened the North Sea and adopted stronger immigration policies. Trump has repeatedly urged Britain to increase oil and gas extraction in the North Sea.
Another point of pressure emerged later Thursday, when Trump threatened a new tariff on the UK if it did not drop its 2% digital services tax on large US technology companies. BBC News reported that it had contacted Downing Street for comment.
What Charles can — and cannot — do
The King’s role is not to publicly negotiate government policy, but state visits are often used to project continuity and soften diplomatic friction. CBC News, in an overview of the trip, cited experts who said the monarchy’s soft power may matter, even if it is unlikely to immediately resolve entrenched disputes.
Garret Martin, a professor at American University’s school of international service, told CBC: "I think the idea is not to assume an immediate impact." He said the visit may instead serve as a medium- to long-term reminder of the importance of the relationship and its shared history.
Craig Prescott, a constitutional expert at Royal Holloway, University of London, told CBC the visit comes at an unusually sensitive time for a state visit and that delaying or abandoning it would have risked deepening the diplomatic rupture. Charles’s address to Congress will also be closely watched: it will be only the second time a UK monarch has spoken there, after Queen Elizabeth II’s 1991 address.
For now, Trump is presenting the King’s visit as a possible bridge. Whether the private meetings, speeches and ceremonial diplomacy can ease the sharper disputes over Iran, energy, immigration and trade remains the central question hanging over the trip.
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