LONDON: US President Donald Trump arrives in the United Kingdom on Tuesday for a state visit during which the British government hopes a multibillion-dollar technology deal will show the transatlantic bond remains strong despite differences over Ukraine, the Middle East and the future of the Western alliance.
State visits in Britain blend 21st-century diplomacy with royal pageantry. Trump’s two-day trip comes complete with horse-drawn carriages, military honor guards and a glittering banquet inside a 1,000-year-old castle – all tailored to a president with a fondness for gilded splendor.
King Charles III will host Trump at Windsor Castle before the president holds talks with Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Chequers, the British leader’s rural retreat.
Starmer’s office said the visit will demonstrate that “the UK-US relationship is the strongest in the world, built on 250 years of history” – after that awkward rupture in 1776 – and bound by shared values of “belief in the rule of law and open markets.” There was no mention of Trump’s market-crimping fondness for sweeping tariffs.
The White House expects the two countries will strengthen their relationship during the trip as well as celebrate the upcoming 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, according to a senior White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. It was not clear how the UK was planning to mark that chapter in their shared history.
“The trip to the UK is going to be incredible,” Trump told reporters on Sunday. He said Windsor Castle is “supposed to be amazing” and added: “It’s going to be very exciting.”
Trump’s second state visit
Trump is the first US president to get a second state visit to the UK.
The unprecedented nature of the invitation, along with the expectation of lavish pomp and pageantry, holds dual appeal to Trump. The president has glowingly praised the king’s late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, and spoken about how his own Scotland-born mother loved the queen and the monarchy.
The president is also royally flattered by exceptional attention and has embraced the grandeur of his office in his second term. He has adorned the normally more austere Oval Office with gold accents, is constructing an expansive ballroom at the White House and has sought to refurbish other Washington buildings to his liking.
Foreign officials have shown they’re attuned to his tastes. During a visit to the Middle East this year, leaders of Saudi Arabia and Qatar didn’t just roll out a red carpet but dispatched fighter jets to escort Trump’s plane.
Starmer has already shown he’s adept at charming Trump. Visiting Washington in February, he noted the president’s Oval Office decorating choices and decision to display a bust of Winston Churchill. During Trump’s private trip to Scotland in July, Starmer visited and praised Trump’s golf courses.
Efforts to woo the president make some members of Starmer’s Labour Party uneasy, and Trump will not address Parliament during his visit, like French President Emmanuel Macron did in July. Lawmakers will be on their annual autumn recess, sparing the government an awkward decision.
The itinerary in Windsor and at Chequers, both well outside London, also keeps Trump away from a planned mass protest against his visit.
“This visit is really important to Keir Starmer to show that he’s a statesman,” said Leslie Vinjamuri, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “But it’s such a double-edged sword, because he’s going to be a statesman alongside a US president that is not popular in Europe.”
Troubles for Starmer
Preparations for the visit have been ruffled by political turmoil in Starmer’s center-left government. Last week, Starmer sacked Britain’s ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, over his past friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Mandelson had good relations with the Trump administration and played a key role in securing a UK-US trade agreement in May. His firing has put Epstein back in British headlines as Trump tries to swerve questions about his own relationship with the disgraced financier.
Mandelson’s exit came just a week after Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner quit over a tax error on a home purchase. Fourteen months after winning a landslide election victory, Starmer’s position is fragile and his poll ratings are in the dumps.
But he has found a somewhat unexpected supporter in Trump, who in June said that Starmer is a friend, despite being “slightly more liberal than I am.”
Starmer’s government has cultivated that warmth and tried to use it to get favorable trade terms with the US, the UK’s largest single economic partner, accounting for 18 percent of total British trade.
The May trade agreement reduces US tariffs on Britain’s key auto and aerospace industries. But a final deal has not been reached over other sectors, including pharmaceuticals, steel and aluminum.
Labour lawmaker Liam Byrne, who heads the House of Commons’ Business and Trade Committee, said it’s vital “to turn paper promises into a binding bargain that ends the tariff tempest that is battering British exporters and investors.”
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are expected to be among the business leaders in the US delegation. Trump and Starmer are set to sign a technology partnership – which Mandelson was key to striking – accompanied by major investments in nuclear energy, life sciences and Artificial Intelligence data centers.
Vinjamuri said the tech announcement is critical for Starmer.
“This is a government that wants to be able to project more growth, more productivity, and that has really struggled to do so,” she said.
The leaders are also expected to sign nuclear energy deals, expand cooperation in regards to their nations’ defense technology and explore ways to bolster ties between their financial hubs, according to the White House official.
Ukraine on the agenda
Starmer has also tried to use his influence to maintain US support for Ukraine, with limited results. Trump has expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin but has not made good on threats to impose new sanctions on Russia for shunning peace negotiations.
Last week’s Russian drone incursion into NATO member Poland drew strong condemnation from European NATO allies, and pledges of more planes and troops for the bloc’s eastern flank. Trump played down the incident’s severity, musing that it “could have been a mistake.”
Starmer also departs from Trump over Israel’s war in Gaza, and has said the UK will formally recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations later this month.
Vinjamuri said Starmer “has kept the United States speaking the right language” on Ukraine, but has had little impact on Trump’s actions.
“On China, on India, on Israel and Gaza and Hamas, and on Vladimir Putin – on the really big important things – the UK hasn’t had a huge amount of influence,” she said.