A Dutch comedian captured the mood in the Netherlands last week when he called King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima’s upcoming visit to Washington “the strangest sleepover ever.”
The King and Queen are headed to Washington on Monday. They hosted President Trump at a royal palace last year during a closely watched NATO summit, giving him a red-carpet treatment that has earned them a reciprocal invitation — including a rare overnight stay in the White House. Rob Jetten, the prime minister of the Netherlands, will join them at dinner with Mr. Trump on Monday night.
But amid the war in Iran, anxiety over the future of NATO, and continued wariness about the president’s intentions for Greenland, the people of the Netherlands are greeting the trip with mixed reactions.
The comedian, Arjen Lubach, who hosts a satirical late-night show on Dutch television, on Thursday mocked the royal couple’s plan to have “a nice pajama party” at the White House.
“Cozy. First blow up the air mattress, and then Iran,” he said.
Similarly skeptical reactions have rippled across the Netherlands. Opposition lawmakers have warned that the king and queen are on the wrong side of history. There was a public petition to call off the trip. And on the day that President Trump threatened to wipe out “a whole civilization” in Iran, Mr. Jetten faced a volley of questions in the Dutch Senate about the visit.
Mr. Jetten, whose narrow electoral victory last year was hailed as a sign that pragmatic progressivism can triumph over populism, walked a careful line. He described Trump’s statement as “truly very concerning,” but declined to answer whether an all-out attack on civilian targets in Iran would make him call off the visit.
“You also have to ask yourself to what extent it makes a difference if a small country like the Netherlands says, ‘We’re not coming now in protest,’” he said. He added that showing up and having “a serious conversation about what you do and don’t agree on” might be “more useful at this moment.”
Some of his countrymen take a less optimistic view.
“It’s a delegation sent to please the bully,” said Menno Schut, 51, who runs a framing shop in the center of The Hague and who spoke in an interview on Saturday.
Mr. Schut has been framing paintings, embroideries and wedding pictures for around two decades, and he once sold the king’s assistant a single tiny screw, he said. He explained that he understood that it is “not an option” to cancel the trip.
“But in a way, I also think it’s weak,” he added.
The visit to Washington will be part of a three-day trip for the king and queen, who will also visit Philadelphia and Miami. Staying overnight at the White House is rare for world leaders, who often sleep across the street at Blair House.
King Charles and Queen Camilla are also expected to visit Washington at the end of this month, in the first British state visit to the United States since Queen Elizabeth II visited George W. Bush in 2007.
Though that visit had been planned for a while, some had questioned whether it would go ahead, given Mr. Trump’s frequent belittling of Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his refusal to join the initial U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.
Royal experts say there is a logic behind such visits. Europe’s ceremonial monarchies are at one remove from elected lawmakers, and can underline the deep historical ties between countries even at times of heightened political tension.
Mr. Jetten has hinted that the current strains in trans-Atlantic relations — which have been fueled by Mr. Trump’s disdain for European leaders, his global trade war and his threats to take over Greenland — make this trip potentially useful.
“Recent months have also shown repeatedly that actually maintaining contact with the United States can also enable you to reach common ground again on a number of very important issues,” he said last week.
Not everyone in the Netherlands agrees.
Arva Bustin, 25, a fashion designer who was in The Hague on Saturday, said she found it “simply absurd” that the Netherlands was sending its royals to meet “a very bad person who is really destroying the world right now.”
Others are less perturbed. At a market outside the city center where vendors on Saturday were selling items as varied as tulips, pearl-studded jeans and crates of blueberries, John van der Toorn, a 60-year-old fishmonger, took a more neutral view.
“Just let them do their thing,” said Mr. van der Toorn.
Some had mixed feelings about the trip, but still believed in keeping the dialogue open.
Mieke van Limburg, 72, sitting in a park behind the royal Noordeinde Palace in The Hague, said she did not think it would be useful for the royal couple to discuss politics with the president.
“Trump couldn’t care less what the king and queen think,” she said. But, she said, “I do think it’s very important that we stay on speaking terms.”
Koba Ryckewaert is a reporter and researcher for The Times based in Brussels.
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