{"id":280,"date":"2026-04-29T12:35:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/29\/how-king-charles-charmed-the-us-while-taking-digs-at-trump-in-historic-speech-to-congress\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T12:35:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:35:31","slug":"how-king-charles-charmed-the-us-while-taking-digs-at-trump-in-historic-speech-to-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/29\/how-king-charles-charmed-the-us-while-taking-digs-at-trump-in-historic-speech-to-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"How King Charles charmed the US while taking digs at Trump in historic speech to Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"

King Charles\u2019s speech<\/a> to the US Congress \u2013 only the second such address by a British monarch \u2013 demonstrates how much both the US and the UK have changed in the last three decades. <\/p>\n

The first speech was in May 1991<\/a> during his mother, Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s, third state visit to the US. The underlying purpose of both speeches was the same: to stress the enduring links between Britain and the US. But the circumstances in which they were delivered were very different.<\/p>\n

The late queen\u2019s speech came in the wake of joint action by US and British forces, along with other allies, to eject Saddam Hussein\u2019s Iraqi troops from Kuwait<\/a>. She referenced this in her speech as a concrete example of the strength of the Anglo-American alliance. <\/p>\n

In 2026, the UK has pointedly refused to join the US-Israeli attack on Iran, angering President Donald Trump. Charles\u2019s speech adroitly inverted the moral of this apparent diplomatic rift, suggesting that tensions in the past had always been overcome. Referring to the revolution of 1776 he noted: \u201cOurs is a partnership born out of dispute, but no less strong for it\u201d, because ultimately \u201cour nations are in fact instinctively like-minded\u201d.<\/p>\n

A speech like this, voiced by the monarch, can serve at least two useful purposes. The first is to portray things that are, at heart, profoundly political, as being somehow above politics. The second is to place the transitory difficulties of day-to-day diplomacy within the much longer-term perspective of a dynasty that traces its lineage back to the Norman Conquest. <\/p>\n

These two elements featured in how both Elizabeth II and Charles\u2019s speeches depicted the Anglo-American alliance. The latter was the basis of a joke by the king, who referred to the actions of the Founding Fathers \u201c250 years ago, or, as we say in the United Kingdom, just the other day\u201d.<\/p>\n

Charles\u2019s speech was beautifully crafted and delivered with a degree of warmth and conviction that was always beyond the range of his mother\u2019s public oratory. That, in itself, was almost an implicit reproach to the president\u2019s own rambling, undisciplined public pronouncements. <\/p>\n

And in more than one way the address was pitched over the head of Trump. The lack of any immediate pushback from the president suggests that the subtlety of some of the messaging eluded him. But in a more significant sense, it was an appeal to causes that still resonate with much of the American political class if not with the Trump administration itself. <\/p>\n

Charles stressed the value of Nato and the importance of \u201cthe defence of Ukraine and her most courageous people\u201d. He made a sly reference to his proud association with the Royal Navy \u2013 an institution that has been the subject of some disparagement<\/a> by Trump in recent weeks. <\/p>\n

He emphasised the importance of protecting the environment, although couched in a Trumpian language of profit and loss: \u201cWe ignore at our peril the fact that these natural systems \u2013 in other words, Nature\u2019s own economy \u2013 provide the foundation for our prosperity and our national security.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps his most pointed remarks \u2013 and those that generated the loudest applause from some (although not all) in the hall \u2013 were directed at the US itself. He described Congress as \u201cthis citadel of democracy created to represent the voice of all American people\u201d. He mentioned the role of Magna Carta in laying the foundation for the constitutional principle that \u201cexecutive power is subject to checks and balances\u201d. Trump\u2019s opponents clearly enjoyed that.<\/p>\n

Saving the special relationship<\/h2>\n

State visits by British monarchs to the US have been relatively rare, and state visits to London by US presidents are even rarer. Trump is unique in having made two. This in itself is a mark of the desperate attempts by British governments, both Tory and Labour, to find ways of managing relations with his administration. This desperation was also apparent in Keir Starmer\u2019s reckless decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as British ambassador to Washington<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The king\u2019s speech pushed in interesting ways at the boundaries of what a British monarch might be expected to have said in Trump\u2019s America. Yet some of the sentiments in his mother\u2019s 1991 address to Congress \u2013 considered uncontroversial at the time \u2013 could no longer be expressed without the risk of offending the current administration. <\/p>\n

\n<\/figure>\n

Queen Elizabeth noted: \u201cSome people believe that power grows from the barrel of a gun. So it can, but history shows us that it never grows well nor for very long. Force, in the end, is sterile.\u201d <\/p>\n

That may be a lesson Trump will have to learn the hard way. But for the moment, he and his immediate circle seem to have an unwavering belief in the primacy of kinetic force, and have little interest in the objective Charles described of stemming \u201cthe beating of ploughshares into swords\u201d.<\/p>\n

The queen also commended \u201cthe rich ethnic diversity of both our societies\u201d. Charles spoke instead about interfaith understanding. This is not quite the same thing \u2013 but is certainly more compatible with the Trump administration\u2019s disturbingly relaxed approach<\/a> to the rise of white-supremacist politics.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the saddest feature of a comparison of the two speeches is the queen\u2019s proud boast in 1991 that \u201cBritain is at the heart of a growing movement towards greater cohesion within Europe, and within the European Community in particular\u201d. If the US has changed since 1991, so has Britain. It would be nice to think that one day the monarch might give an equally generous speech about shared history and values in front of the UK\u2019s European neighbours.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Philip Murphy has received funding from the AHRC. He is a member of the European Movement UK.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

King Charles\u2019s speech to the US Congress \u2013 only the second such address by a British monarch \u2013 demonstrates how much both the US and the UK have changed in the last three decades. The first speech was in May 1991 during his mother, Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s, third state visit to the US. The underlying […]<\/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-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","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=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}