King Charles hopes to mend rift with US. Is he up to the task?
Michael CollinsWASHINGTON – King Charles III’s mother, Queen Elizabeth II, knew how to finesse her way through an awkward situation.
Faced with toasting the United Kingdom's former colonies on the occasion of their 200th birthday, the queen stood alongside President Gerald Ford beneath a big tent over the White House Rose Garden on the night of July 7, 1976, and graciously raised a glass to America and all that it had become since declaring its independence from Great Britain.
“After all,” she said, “nobody can say that what happened on the Fourth of July, 1776, was not very much a bilateral affair between us.”
(Cue the laughter, please.)
Fifty years later, another British monarch – King Charles, accompanied by his wife, Queen Camilla – is returning to these shores to commemorate America’s 250th birthday. But unlike his mother’s visit, which came during a relatively calm period after transatlantic tensions over the Vietnam War, Charles’ sojourn to the states comes amid the most serious rift in decades between the White House and the British government.
President Donald Trump has sparred with, insulted and, on occasion, even mocked Prime Minister Keir Starmer over tariffs (a cornerstone of Trump’s economic policy); the future of the NATO alliance (Trump questions its value); the war in Iran (the United Kingdom wants no role in it); free speech (the White House claims Britain is censoring conservative views); Greenland (Trump wants it); and Canada (Trump says it should become the 51st state).
"This is not Winston Churchill we're dealing with,” Trump said of Starmer in front of a group of reporters in the Oval Office on March 3.
Against that backdrop comes Charles, who arrives in Washington on April 27, with royal pomp and pageantry for a four-day state visit that includes a formal state dinner at the White House, a rare address to a joint session of Congress and a ceremonial stop at the memorial dedicated to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York.
For Britain, Charles’ visit offers a chance to reset the “special relationship” that has bonded it to the United States through two world wars and decades of other perils. For Charles, the trip will offer a chance to prove to the world that he shares his mother’s proficiency in diplomacy.
Asked whether the king’s visit could repair relations with the United States, Trump told the BBC: “Absolutely. He’s fantastic. He’s a fantastic man.”
King Charles 'will find a way to charm Trump'
But how do you charm a leader like Trump, who often speaks to foreign dignitaries like the blunt New Yorker he is instead of in the formal language of diplomatic communications?
“That is actually the big question – how (Charles) is going to approach this,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonprofit policy research group in Washington.
Royal watchers say Charles is up to the task. In some ways, he’s better in these kinds of settings than his mother, who sometimes came across as too stiff and formal, said British historian Andrew Lownie, who has written extensively about the royal family.
“He’s as good if not better than his mother,” Lownie said. “He’s much more outgoing in many ways. He’s more charming. He has learned all of the tricks from watching his mother. He will find a way to charm Trump.”
Charles had a lot more time to prepare to become the monarch than his mother, who was just 27 when she ascended the throne upon the death of her father. Charles was 73 when he finally became king after his mother’s death, which meant he had seven decades as a royal apprentice before he finally stepped into the top job.
In Washington, Charles will likely emphasize the common bonds of language and shared history that have been the foundational stones of the long friendship between the United States and Britain, said Matt Beech, director of the Centre for British Politics at the University of Hull.
The United States “is born out of the cultures and traditions and practices of England,” he said. “The language that the founders wrote the Declaration of Independence in is the language of the United States to this day.”
If those commonalities aren’t enough to repair the recent bad blood between the countries, Charles has another trump card at his disposal: The American president seems smitten with the British royal family.
“They gave me a tremendously, the five-star dinner, and it was really incredible,” Trump gushed to Susan Page, Washington bureau chief for USA TODAY and author of the recently published book “The Queen and Her Presidents,” about his state dinner at Buckingham Palace in 2019.
Trump, who says one of his earliest memories was watching television coverage of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation with his Scottish-born mother, told Page he and Elizabeth had “a great chemistry together.”
“I sat with her for hours, and Camilla was on my right and she was on my left, and we talked for a long time,” he said.
Trump and Charles have met multiple times, most recently last September when the king hosted the president for a second state dinner at Windsor Castle. Trump has spoken highly of Charles, but what Charles thinks of him isn’t as clear. Charles reportedly takes issue with some of Trump’s policies, particularly his stance on climate change, but has not spoken out publicly against them.
“They seem to get on reasonably well in public,” Beech said. “We don't know really about in private. But in public, they do, and that matters.”
'Tortured relationship'
Charles is the latest head of the royal family, but he’s a different leader than his mother. His reign comes in a different era with different challenges.
The relationship between Washington and London has been wilting for years, Bergmann said, starting with the end of the Cold War and the United States putting less emphasis on Russia and Europe. Britain’s strategic significance for the United States eroded further with Brexit, starting in 2016 with the approval of a referendum to leave the European Union and the formal withdrawal four years later.
U.S. leaders had long looked to Britain as an important pro-American voice in the European bloc. But with the United Kingdom no longer an EU member, “the geopolitical reality is that made the U.K. much less important to the United States,” Bergmann said.
With Trump’s return to power last year and his tensions with Starmer, “you have this sort of tortured relationship right now where the U.K. is trying to kind of maintain things, the U.S. is trying to maintain things – sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t,” Bergmann said. “But the relationship is just no longer as close as it once was. We’re not going to them for advice, and they’re not coming to us.”
Starmer's problems at home
Starmer may be hoping Trump's fondness for the king will help put him back in the president’s good graces. But that won't help the prime minister at home, where he has faced increasing calls for his resignation over allegations he deliberately misled lawmakers over his appointment of the former British ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson.
Mandelson, at the time Starmer gave him Britain's highest-profile overseas diplomatic post, had known ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in a New York prison cell in 2019. Epstein had socialized with several powerful and prominent men in business and politics, including Trump and the king’s brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew. Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal titles last year because of his association with Epstein.
In addition, Starmer's government has been in deep trouble with voters ahead of local elections in May because of an economy facing sluggish growth, persistently high inflation, creaky public services and a national debate over immigration that has been dominated by Reform UK, a party run by Trump ally Nigel Farage.
“Is (Starmer) going to remain as leader?” Bergmann said. “I think there’s some questions about how Charles approaches this.”
Diplomacy and deep ties
As king, Charles is Britain’s head of state but not the head of the government – a distinction that makes the royal family an important asset when it comes to diplomacy and dealing with foreign leaders like Trump.
Charles’ visit is about more than smoothing over troubled waters with one administration, said Richard Whitman, a British professor of politics and international relations at the University of Kent.
It’s a reminder that “the ties are a bit deeper than politicians who come and go,” Whitman said.
And so Charles, like his mother a half-century ago, will stand alongside the U.S. president next week and raise a glass to Britain’s former colonies as they celebrate their independence, their 250th birthday and the world leader they’ve become.
Won’t that be a bit uncomfortable for the British king?
Not at all, Whitman said. The Brits have made their peace with that piece of history.
“Obviously, we still think you made the wrong choice,” he joked. “But that's on you, not us.”
Michael Collins writes about the intersection of politics and culture. A veteran reporter, he has covered the White House and Congress. Follow him on X: @mcollinsNEWS
Contributing from London: Kim Hjelmgaard