What to know about Trump’s UK state visit

By Kevin Liptak, CNN

When United States President Donald Trump arrives at Windsor Castle in a royal carriage Wednesday, heralded by three separate military bands and escorted by riders on horseback, his host - King Charles III - will in some ways be repaying a nearly 37-year-old favor.

In 1988, the then-Prince of Wales was a guest for tea at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's own mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. The visit offered the real estate developer the royal imprimatur, even if Charles elected to spend the night at a horse ranch some distance away rather than sleep at Trump's club.

Long reverent of the British royal family, Trump's visit to the United Kingdom this week offers a similar opportunity: a stamp of validation, applied with honor guards and a state banquet, from some of the few people for whom he holds genuine and, to this point, unwavering respect.

"I hate to say it, but nobody does it like you people in terms of the pomp and ceremony," Trump said in July during a visit to Scotland.

"Windsor," he said on Sunday, "is supposed to be amazing."

Acutely aware of the president's taste for royalty and ceremony, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer came to the White House armed with the invitation from Charles in the first weeks of Trump's second presidency, hoping to use the royal connections to ease ties with a political opposite at a sensitive diplomatic moment.

Starmer was the second UK prime minister to execute the move. One of his predecessors, Theresa May, did virtually the same thing in the first few days of Trump's first term, though the state visit didn't materialise for another two years - and did little to endear the president to May, who stepped down three days after his visit concluded.

This week's trip - with a different prime minister, hosted by a different sovereign and convened at a different castle (Buckingham Palace is undergoing a multiyear renovation) - is a rarity. Typically, second-term US presidents aren't afforded the pomp of another state visit.

"This has never happened before; this is unprecedented," Starmer intoned in the Oval Office in February when he pulled out an envelope containing the written invitation from Charles.

"Am I supposed to read it right now?" Trump asked, before silently reading the missive. Eventually, after some awkwardness, came his response: "The answer is yes."

What will the state visit look like?

Trump, who will be joined by first lady Melania Trump, arrives in the United Kingdom on Tuesday evening (Tuesday morning New Zealand time). But the pageantry really gets underway Wednesday (NZ Wednesday night), according to a schedule released by Buckingham Palace.

When Trump and the first lady arrive at the grounds of Windsor Castle, just outside London, they'll be greeted by the Prince and Princess of Wales - William and Catherine - who represent the future of the royal family.

When Trump last met Prince William in Paris in December at the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, he came away impressed. "He's a good-looking guy," the then-president-elect mused afterward. "Some people look better in person? He looked great."

From there, the Trumps will meet Charles and Queen Camilla as a royal salute is fired from Windsor Castle's lawn. They'll board their carriages and proceed through the Windsor estate toward the castle, with horses and riders alongside and the military bands lining the route.

After extensive troop inspections and lunch with the extended royal family, Trump and the first lady will spend some time in the Green Drawing Room looking at items from the royal collection. They'll lay a wreath at the tomb of Queen Elizabeth II in St George's Chapel. And, in the evening, the centerpiece event: a state banquet at Windsor Castle.

The fanfare will also be extended to Melania Trump, who will join Camilla for a tour of Queen Mary's Dolls' House and the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, followed by a scouting event on the castle's grounds with Kate on Thursday. The rare deployment of the princess and her considerable star power underscores the broader diplomatic effort by the United Kingdom to cultivate close ties with the Trump administration.

Is it just pomp and circumstance?

Mostly. And any overt talk of politics will be verboten with the royals, who studiously avoid the subject.

Still, there will be a day of business on Thursday, when Trump will travel to Chequers - the prime minister's country house in Buckinghamshire - for talks with Starmer.

The two leaders are political opposites who have nonetheless managed to develop an outwardly friendly relationship. Their talks have avoided any of the acrimony that tends to color even some of Trump's better meetings with his counterparts.

"We've become friends in a short period of time," Trump said during a meeting at the G7 summit in Canada this summer, adding, "He's slightly more liberal than I am."

One of Starmer's chief objectives with Trump was striking a new trade deal, something he managed to accomplish quickly, even as other countries scrambled for weeks to negotiate plans to avoid sweeping tariffs.

But like many of Trump's announced trade deals, some of the finer details either aren't finalised or are still a matter of dispute. But some flesh was put on the bones when Starmer on Monday announced a US-UK nuclear energy agreement, which will make it easier for companies to build new power stations in both countries.

Starmer's close relationship with Trump has also so far failed to move the president closer to Europe's position on the war in Ukraine, despite hours of phone calls and meetings on the subject. Trump has stopped short of applying new sanctions on Russia amid pressure from Starmer and other European leaders to act.

Those topics will certainly arise Thursday, both in the two men's private discussions and later at a joint press conference. For Starmer, the hope could be that Trump - fresh from being feted by royalty - may not chafe at a little extra prodding.

Why is this a big deal for Trump?

One of Trump's earliest memories is watching his mother, the Scotland-born Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, sitting rapt in front of her television watching Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.

"For Christ's sake, Mary, enough is enough, turn it off," his father Fred griped, according to Trump's book Art of the Deal. "They're all a bunch of con artists."

In this respect, Trump took after his mother. She passed the love of royal spectacle onto her son, who has spent much of his adult life either admiring the Windsors from afar or attempting to cultivate them as friends.

His first state visit, in 2019, was a highlight of his first term.

"Meeting Queen Elizabeth II was particularly important to President Trump," Fiona Hill, an adviser in Trump's first term, wrote in her 2021 memoir. "A meeting with the Queen of England was the ultimate sign that he, Trump, had made it in life."

In the same era he hosted Charles at Mar-a-Lago, Trump - according to multiple biographies - circulated rumors the prince and his then-wife, Princess Diana, were looking to purchase an apartment at Trump Tower (they weren't).

And when Charles and Diana divorced in 1996, Trump bombarded the newly single princess with bouquets of flowers at her Kensington Palace home, according to her friend, the former British TV anchor Selina Scott.

"Trump clearly saw Diana as the ultimate trophy wife," Scott wrote in a 2015 column in The Sunday Times, citing private conversations at the time with her friend.

Decades later, Trump, 79, and Charles, 76, find themselves leading their respective nations, with distinct roles to play in managing the vaunted "special relationship".

"I'm a big fan of King Charles. I've known him for quite a while," Trump said in July. "Great guy, great person."

Could the Epstein scandal make things awkward?

Much of the state visit was orchestrated and planned by a man who is no longer invited, the former UK ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson. The reason? His links to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Mandelson was fired as the ambassador last week, after US lawmakers released a collection of letters that formed Epstein's 50th "birthday book", in which the veteran Labour party politician penned a handwritten note, describing the financier as "my best pal".

Although Mandelson stressed he wrote his birthday message before Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting sex from underage girls, this defense quickly unraveled. Bloomberg published a trove of emails that showed Mandelson continued to support his "pal" after his conviction, and offered to use his political contacts to help clear Epstein's name.

Mandelson was fired the day after his emails were published, with Britain's Foreign Office saying the new information showed the "depth and extent" of his relationship with Epstein was "materially different" from what was known when he was appointed.

The timing of Mandelson's dismissal will draw attention to Trump's own ties to Epstein, which the president has been keen to quash. Another letter in the "birthday book" was signed in Trump's name, but he has denied writing it.

Trump's visit also comes days after Elon Musk, the president's one-time "first buddy", addressed an anti-immigration rally in London, calling for the dissolution of parliament and change of government in the UK. "Violence is coming," Musk said via video link. "You either fight back or you die."

When Trump arrives in the UK, he will be welcomed by a prime minister weakened by Mandelson's scandal and under growing pressure from Britain's febrile hard-right. It remains to be seen whether Trump's visit will provide Starmer some relief or add to his woes.

- CNN