The United Kingdom is set to roll out the royal red carpet for United States President Donald Trump’s second state visit to the country, with an extraordinary show of pomp and pageantry unfolding entirely behind closed doors, far from planned protests in London.
King Charles III will host Trump at Windsor Castle on Wednesday before trade talks the next day with Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Chequers, the British leader’s rural retreat.
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Trump’s visit to London coincides with critical trade negotiations between the US and many of its key trading partners, including the UK. During his stay, both countries plan to announce several deals on technology and civil nuclear energy, and British leaders hope to finalise an agreement on metal tariffs.
If the UK authorities’ goal was to make Trump feel most welcome, it appeared to be working, as he arrived by helicopter at the US ambassador’s official residence in London on Tuesday night with First Lady Melania Trump.
“A lot of things here warm my heart,” said Trump, whose mother hailed from Scotland and who has two golf courses in the UK. He described Charles, 76, who is undergoing treatment for cancer, as “my friend”.
This state visit is “certainly unprecedented”, said Al Jazeera’s Milena Veselinovic, reporting from Windsor Castle, about 40km (25 miles) west of central London.
“The UK government hopes that all the glitter and glamour of a state visit and all that entails, mixing with the royals, the pomp and the pageantry, will put Donald Trump in a good mood and make him more malleable to perhaps negotiate on trade” and more willing to heed Starmer on certain foreign policy matters, said Veselinovic.
The US president’s day will begin with heir to the throne Prince William and his wife Catherine welcoming the Trumps to Windsor Castle, the home of the British royals for nearly a millennium.
King Charles and Queen Camilla are then due to join them for a carriage procession through the grounds of Windsor estate towards the castle – again behind closed doors.
The Trumps will lay a wreath on the tomb of Queen Elizabeth II, who died in 2022.
Trump will also witness a military band ceremony, ending with a flypast by US and British F-35 military jets and the Royal Air Force’s Red Arrows display team. This is the first joint flypast by US and UK fighter jets at an event of its kind, and the largest guard of honour at a state visit, featuring 120 horses and 1,300 troops.
The president and Charles will wrap up the day with a white-tie state banquet, where they are due to give speeches.
The visit comes at an awkward time for US, UK leaders
Starmer faces political troubles at home, after sacking his UK ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, over the ongoing furore involving the diplomat’s connection to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019.
Trump has also been dragged into its quadmire, riling his MAGA base, while insisting it is a “hoax”.
The lavish state and royal welcome, however, stands in contrast to public opinion in the UK, where polls show Trump remains a deeply unpopular figure.
On Tuesday, dozens of protesters from the Stop Trump Coalition gathered outside Windsor Castle to demonstrate against Trump’s visit. Four people were arrested on suspicion of malicious communications after they projected images of Trump and Epstein onto the nearly 1,000-year-old castle, according to Thames Valley police.
Large protests are also planned in London on Wednesday.
In an opinion piece written for the UK daily The Guardian before Trump’s visit, London’s Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan, who Trump has repeatedly insulted and denigrated, accused Trump of doing more than anyone else to “fan the flames of divisive, far-right politics around the world in recent years”.
Khan said that while he recognised the practical reasons for maintaining strong ties with the US, the UK should not be afraid to criticise Trump.
The so-called special relationship between the UK and US, Khan said, “includes being open and honest with each other”, adding: “At times, this means being a critical friend and speaking truth to power.”
Khan also publicly clashed with the US president during his first state visit in 2019.
Trump has “publicly endorsed” and called Nigel Farage, head of the far-right anti-immigration Reform party, a friend, said Veselinovic.
Farage has said the party’s policies regarding immigration were “partly inspired or at least echo Donald Trump’s own deportation programmes in the US”, said Veselinovic.
The UK’s primary goal with the state visit “is to try to get more favourable terms with the US in the existing UK-US trade deal… It is looking like that may perhaps not happen for Keir Starmer during this visit,” said Veselinovic. “Critics have said that perhaps he [Starmer] was too fast to extend this unprecedented second invitation for a state visit, that he should’ve dangled it as an award for more favourable treatment.”
During Thursday’s visit, Starmer is also expected to discuss foreign affairs with Trump.
Starmer has tried to use his influence to maintain US support for Ukraine, with limited results. Trump has expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he hosted in Alaska last month, but has not made good on threats to impose new sanctions on Russia for shunning peace negotiations.
Source: Aljazeera
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