By Martin Farr, Newcastle University; The Conversation
FILE: President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, King Charles III and Queen Camilla view a Beating Retreat military ceremony and flyover by the Red Arrows at Windsor Castle in Windsor, England on Wednesday, September 17, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok; The White House/Facebook)
Donald Trump’s first state visit to the UK, in June 2019, was an attempt by the British government to try to forestall the threat of Trumpism, a set of ideas and style of leadership that were not, in the end, embedded. The unprecedented second state visit of September 2025 has been an attempt to accommodate the second Trump administration – one already much more purposeful and consequential.
In one respect, the two visits are complementary: they feature an imperturbable president entreated by beleaguered prime ministers. Theresa May was humiliated publicly by Trump, and was gone the following month. Starmer has almost nothing in common with Trump except a quite unexpected, and largely inexplicable, personal chemistry.
Briefings on Air Force One, as it headed to the UK, would have been brief – the president is easily bored – and aimed at preparing him for what awaited: thousands of people in uniform choreographed to the inch to impress a mere dozen or so Americans, and one in particular.
There were issues of substance, some of which are very substantial indeed. A civil “nuclear partnership” almost complementing the 70-year-old military nuclear partnership. As they already do in the older partnership, the two sides will now recognise the other’s standards and safety assessments in civil nuclear projects. More was made of the vaunted “tech prosperity deal”.
These agreements are meaningful and had Lord Mandelson at their core, before his sacking. He would be justified in viewing – as he doubtless does – that the state visit was in part a posthumous monument to his ambassadorship.
State visits are a key part of national diplomacy, and particularly when royalty may be deployed. As ever, Trump tests norms to breaking point. In a constitutional monarchy such as Britain’s, the monarch acts on the advice of the government. But Trump is potentially so damaging by association for the government (and Starmer in particular) that the monarch was more central than ever.
Trump and his supporters will not admit publicly that so dominating a political actor makes people bend to their will. Faced with the most imperious president in the history of the imperial presidency, they seek to accommodate, pre-empt, cajole, appease. One exception is a king.
This state visit – and the likely return trip of Charles to the US for the 250th anniversary of US independence next year – is a card the British were suitably shameless in playing. There is a clear rapport between the two; indeed, a rapport that would have been unlikely – given their different personalities – with Elizabeth II. Charles III has proven to be an essential, rather than merely complementary, element of the special relationship.
For once, there’s a precedent for so singular a president. In November 2003 – after a million marched in London in opposition to the US-UK invasion of of Iraq – President George W. Bush scarcely left a barricaded Buckingham Palace.
Where a state visit ordinarily occasions – demands – an open-topped carriage ride along the Mall with the monarch, it is a unique irony that the leader of Britain’s closest ally had to travel by drone-shielded helicopter. No members of the public – who effectively paid for the visit – saw the president.
This time, Windsor suited much more than Buckingham Palace as the venue because, as one might hope from a castle, it is secure and can repel the unwanted.
Wednesday’s procession professing “Trump not welcome” was a relatively modest affair. The Stop Trump Coalition – an umbrella association of over 60 organisations including CND, Extinction Rebellion, Fossil Free London, Keep our NHS Public, and the National Education Union – may need to reconsider its founding imperative.
That the demonstration was significantly smaller than the one that greeted Trump in 2019 – notwithstanding the even more fevered and febrile public square – is testament to a sense of resignation occasioned by this repeat of history.
Opposites attract
Inasmuch as it’s possible with Trump, nothing was left to chance, apart from the press conference, where disagreement was minimal, though unusually clearly stated – a sign of confidence. Starmer and Trump were clearly reading from different hymn sheets on recognising Palestine and net zero. Trump’s suggestion that the UK follow his lead by sending the military out to deal with illegal immigration is more a disagreement of degree.
They were, however, news lines which were catnip to Starmer’s critics on the right, and in the weeks to come will receive repeated airings. As expected, the Mandelson/Jeffrey Epstein affair had receded in the press – if not the public mind. That Trump denied knowing Mandelson, despite their private meeting the week before, said much more about the president than it did the former ambassador.
Without any public presence whatsoever, the ceremonies and parades were for one person only. The risk of looking slightly desperate, however, proved one worth taking. US media coverage was minimal, meaning wider exposure was limited, and the president was clearly impressed.
The visit also demonstrated, more than ever, the value of royal diplomacy: that it can lubricate, augment, constitute a historical-cultural thread that impresses those a UK government may wish to impress. The extent to which that translates into material benefits is harder to test.
The state visit of President Trump to the UK mattered to both, but it mattered much more to one. Contrary to expectations, opposites so far have attracted. The special relationship has survived and even prospered in the face of uncertainty.
Its smooth passing may provide a locus for a natural – rather than yet another staged – reset. May’s fluffing of the 2017 general election was enough in Trump’s eyes, to condemn her, but so far Trump’s affection for Starmer has withstood the growing talk of the defenestration of a prime minister with a 22% approval rating. There remain three years to see how long that persists.
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Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary British History, Newcastle University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
