Trump has also called the UK\u2019s plan to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius an \u201cact of great stupidity\u201d<\/a>, and reports suggest the US is reviewing its position on Britain\u2019s claim to sovereignty of the Falkland Islands<\/a>.<\/p>\n Diplomacy between the two countries is currently at an \u201call time low\u201d<\/a>, according to former Labour defence minister and Nato secretary general Lord Robertson. Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has called for the visit to be cancelled, and Emily Thornberry, chair of the foreign affairs select committee, has said it should be delayed<\/a> while the war in Iran is ongoing.<\/p>\n In addition, the visit is difficult for the king personally. Charles\u2019 brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, was a close associate of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The king has been urged<\/a> to meet with Epstein\u2019s victims. No such meeting is currently scheduled, although the queen<\/a> is due to meet representatives of campaigns against violence against women.<\/p>\n The final decision over whether to cancel or proceed with a state visit lies with the government, not the king. It is constitutional convention<\/a> that the monarch must ultimately accept the advice of the prime minister. <\/p>\n Indeed, the Buckingham Palace press release<\/a> announcing the visit stated that it would take place \u201con advice of His Majesty\u2019s Government\u201d. This specific wording is rare \u2013 usually, there is no explicit mention of state visits being made on the advice of the government. Given Trump\u2019s respect for the royal family, Starmer\u2019s government likely sees this visit as a necessary opportunity to ease UK-US tensions.<\/p>\n Both inbound and outbound state visits are coordinated by the UK Royal Visits Committee<\/a> (RVC), which is comprised of Cabinet Office officials. They pass the RVC\u2019s recommendations to the prime minister, who offers formal advice to the monarch. The king\u2019s representatives<\/a> attend RVC meetings. <\/p>\n According to the 19th-century constitutional historian Walter Bagehot<\/a>, the monarch has \u201cthe right to be consulted, the right to advise, and the right to warn\u201d. This seems to at least give the monarch a bit of discretion over details of their state visits.<\/p>\n George VI \u2013 the first reigning British monarch to make a state visit to the US, in 1939 \u2013 made some changes to the itinerary originally presented to him, including requesting not to address Congress due to his stammer<\/a>.<\/p>\n Following talks with the White House, Buckingham Palace have reportedly made some \u201cmodest operational adjustments\u201d<\/a> to a few engagements during this visit due to security concerns sparked by the shooting at the correspondents\u2019 dinner.<\/p>\n It is not unusual for political events to cast a shadow over state visits. Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s first US state visit took place amid the Suez crisis<\/a>. Her presence helped to \u201cpreserve the special relationship\u201d<\/a> at a time when it was being tested like never before. <\/p>\n \n Ahead of the US bicentennial celebrations in 1976, the British ambassador in Washington even warned<\/a> against sending the queen to Washington due to political events. Amid the Watergate scandal, there was \u201ca very real chance not only of embarrassment to Her Majesty, but of impairment to the dignity of the monarchy\u201d. The RVC suggested that Charles, then Prince of Wales, should go instead.<\/p>\n The British government has long referred to state visits as their \u201cbig gun\u201d<\/a> thanks to the popularity of the monarchy and the symbolic power of a state visit.<\/p>\n Trump is known to admire<\/a> the British royal family, describing the king as a \u201cfantastic man\u201d<\/a>. Recent history suggests the king may even be one of the few people to whom Trump is willing to listen. <\/p>\n Just a week after visiting Windsor Castle in September 2025, the president went from urging Kyiv to make territorial concessions to insisting, at the UN General Assembly of Nations, that it could win back all of the territory captured by Russia since 2022. According to Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s chief of staff, King Charles was a \u201ckey influence\u201d<\/a> on this shift. <\/p>\n Most recently, private comments made by the king to the president were said to have encouraged Trump to backtrack<\/a> from his comments about British soldiers \u201cstaying back\u201d from the front lines in Iraq.<\/p>\n The king will address both houses of Congress<\/a> and deliver a speech at the state banquet. These diplomatically chosen words, which are likely to have been carefully written for him by the government with the involvement of royal aides, will provide opportunities for him to quell the tensions<\/a> of recent months. The government will hope that \u2013 just as Trump has claimed it can \u2013 the king\u2019s visit will \u201cabsolutely repair\u201d<\/a> UK-US relations.<\/p>\n Francesca Jackson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" King Charles\u2019s four-day state visit to the US is going ahead as planned, after a shooting at the White House correspondents\u2019 dinner raised doubts about security. The royal trip, which coincides with the 250th anniversary of American independence, is the first since 2007, when the late Queen Elizabeth II was hosted by President George W. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How are state visits arranged?<\/h2>\n
Tricky political climate<\/h2>\n
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