London (AFP) – Britain will welcome Donald Trump for an unprecedented second state visit in September, Buckingham Palace confirmed Monday, saying he would stay as the guest of King Charles III at Windsor Castle. The US president, “accompanied by the First Lady Mrs. Melania Trump, has accepted an invitation from His Majesty The King to pay a state visit to the United Kingdom from 17 September to 19 September 2025,” said a palace statement. The visit will come only two months after Charles and his wife Queen Camilla welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte to Windsor.
Trump was invited by a personal letter from Charles, which Prime Minister Keir Starmer handed to him in February during a visit to Washington. Starmer has sought to woo Trump with a charm offensive to boost ties and gain better leverage for the UK in tough trade talks with Washington. A delighted Trump, who has long been a big fan of the British royal family, has called the invitation a “very great honour,” and opened the letter from the king in the glare of the world’s cameras. “This is really special, this has never happened before, this is unprecedented,” Starmer said in the Oval Office as he handed Trump the hand-signed letter from the monarch. “This is truly historic.”
Security is likely to be tight for the September trip, after Trump’s earlier state visit in 2019 attracted large protests. The Stop Trump Coalition is already planning a large demonstration in London on September 17. The US president is widely unpopular in Britain, and a YouGov poll in March found that 78 percent of those surveyed had a negative view of Trump, compared to just 16 percent with a positive view. Britain rolled out the red carpet for Trump in 2019 when he met the late Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles’s mother. No foreign leader has ever had a second state visit. The Times daily said the king had however sought to put off the new visit until later in Trump’s second term, but “Starmer has gone against the wishes of the king” in bringing the visit forward. “The prime minister has expedited a full ‘bells and whistles’ visit in an attempt to capitalise on the president’s fascination with the royal family,” The Times said.
Starmer will also meet with Trump this month when the Republican leader is expected to visit Scotland, where he has two golf resorts. The White House has not publicly confirmed the trip, but Downing Street said Monday Trump would be “visiting in a private capacity” and “the prime minister is pleased to take up the president’s invite to meet during his stay.” The devolved Scottish government said First Minister John Swinney would also meet Trump and it was working “on arrangements with partners including Police Scotland.”
Trump’s threats against Canada have put Charles, who is the country’s head of state, in a delicate position. Trump has threatened to slap a 35 percent tariff on imports from Canada starting August 1 and has regularly mused that Canada should become the 51st US state. Reading the letter aloud in the Oval Office in February, Trump said he had been invited to the historic Windsor Castle, near London, one of the royal family’s ancient homes. Trump, whose mother was Scottish, said of Charles: “He’s a beautiful man, a wonderful man — I’ve gotten to know him very well, actually. First term and now second term.” Unlike Macron, who addressed the British parliament during his state visit last week, Trump is not currently scheduled to address the House of Commons which will be then on a break. During the French leader’s visit last week, Britain laid on a pomp-filled welcome, including a horse-drawn procession and a lavish banquet in the castle where the leaders hailed a new era in UK-France relations.
© 2024 AFP
