U.S. President Donald Trump is getting the honour of a state visit to the U.K., a gesture of pageantry and flattery seen by many observers as an effort to keep Britain’s relations as warm as possible with an at-times combative White House.
The highlight of Trump’s two-day visit will be the state banquet hosted by King Charles at Windsor Castle on Wednesday. Trump is also scheduled to meet one-on-one with Keir Starmer at the prime minister’s country estate Chequers on Thursday.
The specifics of the visit suggest close co-ordination by Buckingham Palace and Downing Street, an indication that both the Royal Family and the Starmer government see the potential of using the royal charm on Trump in a manner that advances British interests. Here’s what to look out for during Trump’s visit:
What the King and president say in public
Much of the state visit will be televised. The itinerary shows plenty of pomp and pageantry, including the firing of a royal salute as Charles and Queen Camilla greet Trump and his wife at Windsor Castle, followed by a carriage procession through the grounds escorted by mounted cavalry, a beating retreat ceremony with a flypast of U.S. and U.K. military jets, and a full-fledged white-tie-and-tails state banquet.
Those are the style portions of the state visit. Its biggest moments of substance will come during the banquet, in speeches by Trump and Charles. The King’s speech will come first, along with a toast to the guest, then Trump’s speech.
David Dunn, a professor of international politics at the University of Birmingham, says he’ll be watching the content of the speeches closely.
The King’s speech will be written by the U.K. foreign office and will likely emphasize “a shared constitutional approach to government of democracy and the rule of law, a shared position on the world stage and internationally in NATO and as supporters of the liberal international order,” Dunn told CBC News.
Watch for how Trump’s banquet speech compares and contrasts with the King’s.
How Trump responds to the royal treatment
Trump’s personal affection for royalty and its trappings is well documented. In his book The Art of the Deal he recalled his Scottish-born mother spending the day of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation glued to the television. “She was just enthralled by the pomp and circumstance, the whole idea of royalty and glamour,” Trump said.
For this visit, “the Royal Family are being deployed in the most strategic way to serve the national interest,” said Dunn.
“Trump is someone who we know has a personal taste for opulence,” he said. “Being welcomed in the oldest, most ostentatious palace in the world, Windsor Castle, is something which you can imagine him being particularly attracted to.”
The theory is that an elaborate royal reception will butter Trump up in an attempt to make him more amenable to the British view of things come the meatier final day of the trip when he meets Starmer.
In a meeting at the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer discussed ending the war in Ukraine, but while Trump suggested a ceasefire could be imminent and that Russia could be trusted to honour a deal, Starmer was more cautious.
How the ‘flatter Trump’ strategy works
There’s plenty of ground for disagreement between Starmer and Trump, whether it’s the U.K.’s plan to recognize Palestinian statehood, its firm opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, or the impact of U.S. tariffs on British exports.
Those issues have the potential to make the pair’s joint news conference, scheduled for Thursday, fraught.
Yet through multiple meetings since Trump’s inauguration — including at the G7 summit in Alberta in June, at a Trump golf course in Scotland in July and again at the White House in August — relations between Starmer and the president have appeared generally cordial.
Starmer has used what John Rentoul, chief political commentator for the U.K. newspaper The Independent, calls a “flatter Trump” strategy, but says it remains to be seen whether it will win Trump over regarding Ukraine.
“Trump is mercurial,” Rentoul told The World Today, a publication of Chatham House, the London-based foreign policy think-tank. “Starmer needs to keep up the pressure and to exploit Trump’s love of British pageantry to the full.”
During Starmer’s first official meeting with Trump — at the White House in February — the British prime minister chose a moment in front of the cameras in the Oval Office to hand the president the envelope containing the King’s invitation for the state visit.
How anti-Trump sentiment shows up
The decision to host Trump at Windsor Castle rather than Buckingham Palace, and the timing of the visit with the U.K. Parliament adjourned, keeps the U.S. president away from central London and the kind of mass protest that dogged his 2019 state visit.
While demonstrators are still expected to make an appearance in Windsor, they will see next to nothing of Trump, with the president travelling to and from the castle by helicopter and the processions taking place within the castle grounds.
Security — always tight for any visit of a U.S. president — has reportedly been tightened even further in the wake of last week’s killing of Charlie Kirk, the U.S. conservative commentator and Trump ally.
About state visits to the U.K.
Since his accession to the throne in 2022, Charles has hosted five state visits: the emperor of Japan, the emir of Qatar, and the presidents of South Africa, South Korea and France.
During her 70 years as monarch, Queen Elizabeth hosted 113 state visits. Her last, in 2019, was for Trump.
This visit makes Trump the first president of any country to be granted a second state visit by the U.K. monarchs. The only person granted two state visits by Queen Elizabeth was the Danish Queen Margrethe II, in 1974 and 2001.
