Keir Starmer welcomes president to Chequers — live

It’s not the King’s job to have opinions, but to do what’s best for the country which he clearly is doing and doing it well. The USA is vital to Nato, therefore we have to regard the presidency of the USA as an office rather than any particular individual. R Adams

If it showed anything, it showed one thing about this country and that is its brilliance in the use and management of diplomacy in the way it was meant to be. I’m as strong a critic as you can get of Trump, but witnessed what happened today as being truly masterful. A Crow

The idea of constructive “talks” with this infantile, self-promoting fool is preposterous. Paddy Briggs

How can the royals and government welcome Trump with so much pomp and circumstance when he’s backing Netanyahu, destroying democracy in the USA, connected to Epstein, has several legal issues. Are we really such hypocrites? A Grant

Outside Windsor Castle this morning, a tourist from southern California who did not want to be named said: “I’m embarrassed by the whole thing of him. Our group is split, half are so excited and the other half are going, ‘Oh for god’s sake’.

“Yesterday we were in London and we did the Churchill war rooms and there were all the protests and everything. I wanted a sign and I wanted to say, ‘Don’t come back’.”

She was on a golf trip to the UK with a group of friends and booked a tour of Windsor Castle over a year ago, only to find out last week it would be closed.

She said she was “ashamed” of the show put on for Trump yesterday but added: “Princess Kate looked lovely.”

Sir Keir Starmer has welcomed President Trump to Chequers, his official country retreat.

The leaders will hold bilateral talks before a televised press conference this afternoon.

Trump was greeted by an honour guard of personnel from nearby RAF Halton and two RAF bagpipers. Sir Keir and Lady Starmer shook hands with Trump and posed for photographs before going inside.

Other ministers and business leaders have also arrived at the country house for talks.

Members of the RAF formed a guard at the entrance to Chequers

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Peter Kyle, the business secretary, arriving at Chequers this morning

VICTORIA JONES/SHUTTERSTOCK

Trump left Windsor Castle in a Cadillac One, also known as The Beast. On foreign visits, the Cadillac travels in an entourage of more than 20 vehicles.

It’s a sleek black car that’s ready for any imaginable attack. The body is military-grade with eight-inch thick doors and five-inch thick glass windows, and the wheels are made with a solid core so they can keep rolling if damaged.

The driver and a protection officer carry guns, and the car is equipped with tear gas as well as an oxygen supply in the event of a gas attack.

The Queen, King, president and first lady before Trump left Windsor this morning

KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS

President Trump declared the King to be “a great gentleman and a great king” as he bid farewell to the monarch this morning.

The King and Queen said goodbye to the president and first lady after hosting them overnight at Windsor Castle.

Slightly later than planned, the King and Trump, both dressed in navy blue suits, shook hands twice on the steps and appeared to exchange warm words.

Turning to face the cameras, Trump said: “He’s a great gentleman. A great gentleman and a great king.”

Trump and Charles shook hands outside Windsor

EVAN VUCCI/AP

The Windsor Castle detachment of The King’s Guard was turned out in the Quadrangle to add a final flourish to the royal part of the Trumps’ state visit.

The president departed Windsor Castle for Chequers, while Melania will undertake separate engagements with the Queen and Princess of Wales.

The first lady will visit Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House with Camilla before joining Kate at Frogmore House to meet some young Scouts who will receive badges.

The £150 billion investment from US tech and financial firms are “crumbs from the Silicon Valley table”, Sir Nick Clegg, former Meta global affairs chief told BBC Radio 4’s Today.

The private equity firm Blackstone has pledged £90 billion of investment in Britain over the next decade, and Microsoft and Google have announced £22 billion and £5 billion, respectively.

These are record-breaking sums. But “some sort of perspective needs to be applied to all the hype that comes from the government and the tech companies”, Clegg said.

Google and Microsoft’s investments represent less than 4 per cent of the companies’ annual spend and the lauded 7,500 these deals are expected to create pale in comparison to the 160,000 jobs lost across the country last year.

Clegg also raised concerns about the imbalance between Britain and the US. “Not only do we import all their technology, but we export all our good people and ideas.”

John Healey, the defence secretary, signed a £1.5 billion deal with the chief executive of Palantir, Alex Karp

LUCY NORTH/PA

As part of President Trump’s state visit, the UK has secured £150 billion in investment from US companies.

The package is the largest of its kind, according to the government, surpassing records set by the Chinese and South Korean state visits in 2015 and 2023, respectively.

The American investment group Blackstone has pledged to invest a further £90 billion in the UK in addition to the £10 billion that it has already announced for data centre development.

Palantir, the data analytics group co-founded by the billionaire Peter Thiel, is to invest up to £1.5 billion in the UK, creating up to 350 jobs.

Other investments included a £3.9 billion commitment from Prologis, the American logistics and real estate business.

The total figure of £150 billion also includes several commitments from America’s tech sector, which were announced yesterday.

No one does this stuff like the British do they? The pomp, the pageantry, the cement-grey skies and sideways late-summer rain. High above London, the news channels sent up their helicopters to film the other, more important helicopters. Down on the ground, the unforgiving minute was filled with filler. “The president of the United States likes to travel in a convoy of three helicopters … Marine One isn’t actually a specific aircraft, it’s a call sign.” That’s correct. Marine One is merely the name given to whichever vehicle is carrying the president.

You could tell which one was Marine Force One by the time it touched down in the walled garden of Windsor Castle, because Prince William and Kate went to stand furtively by the door to greet the president and the first lady. They waited for a fair while, too. In an age of strongmen, the 45th and 47th president of the United States may be the strongest and toughest of all the strongmen out there, but he still can’t quite take the tonsorial risk of stepping off a helicopter until the blades have come to a complete standstill.

Read Tom Peck’s sketch: Trump has no need of reality, deep in the land of make-believe

One pro-Trump dog walker in Windsor this morning

TOBY MELVILLE/REUTERS

The roads outside Windsor Castle are fairly empty on Thursday morning except for media and police.

One local man with an American flag and a Maga hat stood with his dog, returning for a third day of showing support for Trump.

Yesterday a handful of protesters and Trump fans gathered outside the castle despite there being no public-facing element of the trip.

A local tour guide suggested there would be fewer tourists in the town as the castle was closed to visitors.

Today’s joint press conference with Sir Keir Starmer and President Trump at Chequers may cover several potential flashpoints, including the war in Gaza.

The UK has been highly critical of Israel’s military assault on Gaza City, branding it “utterly reckless and appalling” and warning that it will only lead to more bloodshed.

The Times has been told that Starmer will formally recognise Palestine this weekend — a move strongly opposed by the US — once Trump has left the country.

Trump has been supportive of Israel and warned that recognising Palestine would reward Hamas.

Other potential tensions are likely to be over free speech, immigration and UK investment in wind turbines.

Starmer is hoping that the focus of the visit will be on investment in the UK. The government said the UK had secured £150 billion of investment from US companies, including £90 billion from the asset manager Blackstone, along with significant tech investment.

• Read more: The potential pitfalls Starmer must sidestep at Trump press call

Trump and Farage in Florida in February

Nigel Farage has claimed that President Trump’s team see themselves in Reform UK.

“They think they see some similarities in what they’ve done and what we’ve done, and you know what, we speak the same language,” Farage told Harry Cole, The Sun’s editor-at-large.

Asked on Harry Cole Saves the West if Trump saw him as Starmer’s successor, Farage said: “He knows that. All the American administration are acutely aware of it.”

Against the magisterial backdrop of St George’s Hall at Windsor Castle, 160 guests listened to Ave Maria and other favourites of President Trump at the banquet held in his honour.

The guests ate a menu that included a starter of watercress panna cotta with parmesan shortbread and quail egg salad, organic chicken ballotine wrapped in courgettes with a thyme-infused jus, and a vanilla ice cream bombe with a raspberry sorbet interior and poached Victoria plums for dessert.

The feast was followed by a 1945 vintage port, in honour of Trump having been the 45th US president, although the American leader is teetotal.

There was also a 1912 cognac, from the birth year of the president’s Scottish-born mother. A hundred staff waited on the guests at the 47m-long table.

The menu, written in French, and place settings at the banquet

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The table was set up in St George’s Hall in Windsor Castle

AARON CHOWN/WPA/GETTY IMAGES

The first lady will remain at Windsor with the Queen while the president goes to Chequers. The pair will view Queen Mary’s dolls’ house — the largest in the world, complete with running water and electricity — and visit the royal library.

Melania will then join the Princess of Wales at Frogmore Gardens to meet the chief scout, Dwayne Fields, and members of the Scouts’ Squirrels programme as they work towards their Go Wild badge.

Queen Mary’s dolls’ house is the world’s largest

TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

The princess has been the joint president of the Scout Association since 2020 and has previously appeared in videos with Fields, describing the “intense emotional reconnection” she found in nature.

The first lady will rejoin President Trump at Chequers before they leave the Starmers and the Lord Chamberlain, the most senior officer of the royal household, bids them farewell on behalf of the King as they depart the UK.

The King praised the special relationship between Britain and America during President Trump’s state visit.

In a speech at the state banquet Charles, 76, said that after the first trade deal with the US, “we can go even further”.

“Our people have fought and died together for the values we hold dear. We have innovated, traded, and created together, fuelling our economies and cultures through myriad forms of exchange,” he said.

He acknowledged that while the first president, George Washington, “famously vowed never to set foot on British soil”, Trump had “set foot on British soil twice in the last two months”.

In reference to the president’s two golf resorts in Scotland, the King joked: “I gather British soil makes for rather splendid golf courses!”

Charles made a joke about UK-US relations at his own expense, recounting the time he was set up on a date with Tricia Nixon, the daughter of Richard Nixon during his presidency, and had to escort her to a White House dinner.

The King said: “Had the media succeeded in the 1970s in their own attempt at deepening the special relationship, I myself might have been married off within the Nixon family!”

Read more: The special relationship between royals and presidents over the years

A Treasury minister insisted that the government was “standing up for British industry” despite tariffs on steel remaining higher than they were a year ago.

Facing questions about the shelving of plans to eliminate the US levy on British steel, James Murray, chief secretary to the Treasury, told Sky News: “Let me put it in context, because we’re obviously the only country to avoid the 50 per cent tariffs and that’s as a result of the deal that the prime minister struck with President Trump.”

The tariff on steel stands at 25 per cent.

“We’re standing up for British industry and the context is the 50 per cent tariffs and we’re the only country to avoid them,” he told Sky News.

He said that the “national interest will drive the prime minister” at “every turn”.

The Trumps, Starmers and King and Queen at Windsor after President Trump arrived for his historic second state visit

SIMON DAWSON/NO 10 DOWNING STREET

Charles and Trump travelled in the Irish State Coach for a procession to Windsor Castle

TOBY MELVILLE/REUTERS

King Charles and Trump inspect the guard of honours at Windsor Castle

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Trump and Melania Trump meet the choir at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle

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The Prince and Princess of Wales meeting the Trumps at Windsor Castle

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Lady Starmer enters the banquet at Windsor Castle with Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state

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Sir Keir Starmer speaks with John Swinney, the Scottish first minister, during the state banquet

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• Read more on the fashion from last night: Belles of the banquet bring out the bling at Windsor Castle

Trump said in his speech at Windsor that the word “special” in special relationship “does not begin to do it justice”.

“We’re joined by history and faith, by love and language and by transcendent ties of culture, tradition, ancestry and destiny,” Trump told the 160 guests at the state banquet.

“We’re like two notes in one chord or two verses of the same poem, each beautiful on its own, but really meant to be played together. The bond of kinship and identity between America and the United Kingdom is priceless and eternal.

“It’s irreplaceable and unbreakable, and we are, as a country, as you know, doing unbelievably well.

“We had a very sick country one year ago, and today, I believe we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world. In fact, nobody’s even questioning it, but we owe so much of that to you and the footing that you gave us when we started.”

The president also made a reference to free speech, an issue the White House has highlighted previously in the UK and wider Europe.

“The British Empire laid the foundations of law, liberty, free speech, and individual rights virtually everywhere,” he said.

This morning, the president will formally bid farewell to the King and Queen at Windsor Castle.

President Trump will travel to Chequers, where he will be greeted by Sir Keir Starmer and his wife, alongside bagpipers and a guard of honour.

Trump and Starmer will view the Sir Winston Churchill archives held at the prime minister’s 16th-century manor house, before holding a bilateral meeting.

The pair will then join a business reception hosted by Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, before a joint press conference at Chequers.