Royalty still has a special quality

King Charles III and Queen Camilla are undertaking the first state visit to the United States by a British monarch in nearly 20 years. The late Elizabeth II made the last of four such visits in 2007 and was received by President George W. Bush. She had also been the guest of George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford and Dwight Eisenhower over her long reign.

None was held in the atmosphere of political tension surrounding this month’s visit. The transatlantic relationship has suffered unusual turbulence since President Trump returned to the Oval Office 14 months ago. He and the British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, are profoundly different. One is a reckless, populist showman, for whom reality is an occasional visitor; the other is a fussy, prickly, sometimes sanctimonious human rights lawyer.

Trump was irritated when volunteers from Starmer’s Labour Party worked on Kamala Harris’s election campaign in 2024. Nevertheless, Starmer handled his first face-to-face meeting in the Oval Office in February 2025 deftly, and dramatically presenting a handwritten message from King Charles to Trump, inviting him to undertake a state visit to Britain. The visit in September 2025 was Trump’s second to the U.K. and billed as unprecedented (not entirely accurate: President Raymond Poincare of France had been received by George V in 1913 and 1919).

A return match had long been anticipated, but came under the spotlight at the beginning of March. The U.S. had launched Operation Epic Fury, the sustained aerial campaign against Iran carried out in partnership with Israel, on Feb. 28, and the U.K. was less cooperative than the White House had expected. Initially, Starmer refused permission for U.S. warplanes to use Navy Support Facility Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire. He then........

© The Hill