King Charles III urged Americans and Britons to draw on their shared heritage to defend democratic values, including checks on executive power, as he exhorted American lawmakers to address global problems collectively in an era of unusually sharp divisions.
In the course of his first state visit to the United States as monarch, Charles stayed scrupulously nonpartisan over the course of a 28-minute address to a joint meeting of Congress. But he promoted what he described as centuries of common interests, including in areas where President Donald Trump has sought a sharp break from past U.S. precedent in his drive to reshape American society and governance.
The United States and Britain should defend Ukraine, Charles said. An independent judiciary should deliver impartial justice. Diverse societies make countries strong. Societies must protect the natural world. And Washington and Europe should “ignore the clarion calls to become ever more inward-looking.”
Charles is officially barred from engaging in politics and mentioned no political leader in his speech. The vision of the American role in the world that he outlined, however, stood in stark contrast to that of Trump, who has declared that migration weakens societies, used executive orders to bypass Congress, attacked judges who rule against him, questioned the existence of climate change and declared his desire to wind down support for Ukraine’s defense against Russian invasion. The speech came on the same day that the Justice Department brought a new indictment against former FBI director James B. Comey, a longtime Trump target.
As the king spoke, the White House posted an image of Trump and Charles on X, calling it “TWO KINGS,” with a crown emoji.
Drawing repeated bipartisan standing ovations from lawmakers who can rarely agree on even the most anodyne of issues, Charles used his position as a living symbol of a state — not an elected leader — to try to revitalize Anglo-American ties at a moment when many on both sides of the Atlantic have sought to turn their backs on each other.
“Ours is a partnership born out of dispute, but no less strong for it,” the king told Congress, becoming just the second British royal to address the chambers after his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, spoke following the Gulf War in 1991.
“Executive power is subject to checks and balances,” Charles said, spurring bipartisan cheers and whistles from his audience at a time when the Republican-led Congress has greatly diminished its power largely by acquiescing to many of Trump’s demands.
He declared his admiration for Congress, which he said represented “the living mosaic of the United States. In both of our countries, it is the very fact of our vibrant, diverse and free societies that gives us our collective strength.”
And, at a time when Trump has repeatedly declared that NATO has not been there for the United States and threatened to reevaluate the U.S. relationship with the defense alliance, Charles reminded his listeners that NATO’s collective-defense clauses were invoked by the United States after the attacks of 9/11, and said “that same, unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine.”
Societies also need to deal with “the collapse of critical natural systems,” the king said, invoking climate change without uttering the words.
The speech amounted to a broad defense of traditional American and British values — delivered to a capital where many leaders have reexamined old principles and declared them ill-fit for the modern era.
The afternoon speech came between a pomp-filled morning ceremony at the White House and a glitzy state dinner in the evening, the second of Trump’s second term. The British monarch’s visit to mark the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence has come at the tensest moment in Anglo-American relations in generations.
The king, who is on his first state visit to the United States since his mother died in 2022, is capitalizing on Trump’s longtime fascination with the British royal family. Trump has attacked British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his reluctance to join forces with Washington in the president’s attack on Iran. But he has shown no such aggression to Charles, embracing the monarch and boasting about what he says is their close relationship.
British officials have said they hope their monarch can paper over tensions between Washington and London, using his royal razzle-dazzle to remind Trump and Americans of the ties that endure no matter the disagreements of the day.
Trump and other senior administration officials have taken aim at Starmer out of frustration at Britain’s initial reluctance to allow U.S. fighter jets to use British bases in the course of the attack on Iran. British leaders subsequently reversed course once the war started, and Iran fired back, saying that national law allowed them to commit their facilities to defense engagements, not offensive ones. Starmer has promised to help secure the Strait of Hormuz once the hot phase of hostilities ends.
But there was no such tension directed at Charles. In the Capitol, lawmakers and aides eagerly awaited the king’s arrival, with staff lining up across the building’s Statuary Hall to catch a glimpse of him. Once he entered the House chamber, lawmakers pulled out their phones to photograph him as he made his way down the aisle.
Earlier in the day, at the White House, the president welcomed Charles and Queen Camilla in the morning with an elaborate outdoor celebration on the South Lawn, as a military band dressed in Revolutionary-era garb played marches on fifes and drums. The two leaders and their wives stood for their anthems: “God Save the King” and “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which commemorates British bombs bursting in the air during the War of 1812.
“In the centuries since we won our independence, Americans have had no closer friends than the British,” Trump told the gathered dignitaries. “We share the same root, we speak the same language, we hold the same values, and together our warriors have defended the same extraordinary civilization under twin banners of red, white and blue.”
Trump — who makes no secret of his regard for pageantry, gold and monarchs — has delighted in the preparations for the visit. He rushed renovations of the West Wing, including freshly laid black granite in the pathway of the West Colonnade, so that they were ready for the king.
Early Tuesday, Trump declared on social media that “I’ve always wanted to live in Buckingham Palace!!!” posting an image of a Daily Mail story that claimed to have traced Trump’s lineage back to King James II, a 15th-century ruler of Scotland and distant relative of the current monarch.
But there were no signs he attempted a fresh peace negotiation, as had been rumored by one celebrity gossip website, between Charles and his estranged son Prince Harry, who now lives in the United States but was not expected to see his father during the visit.
In the speech at the White House, Trump mentioned British colonists settling across a “wild and untamed continent.” The revolutionaries’ “veins ran with Anglo-Saxon courage. Their hearts beat with an English faith in standing firm for what is right good and true,” the president said.
Trump spoke in unusually personal terms about his mother’s regard for the British royal family, declaring that Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, a Scottish-born immigrant, admired Elizabeth and had a “crush” on Charles. His mother was born in the Hebrides islands — “real serious Scotland,” Trump said.
He spoke of the healing of wounds of ancient quarrels, noting that Charles’s speech to Congress, scheduled for later Tuesday, involved the irony of the heir to King George III speaking to the heirs of the gathering of representatives of the 13 colonies that declared independence from Britain in 1776.
“If John Adams and George Washington or the king’s fifth great-grandfather could see that sight, they might be absolutely shocked, but probably only for a moment,” Trump said.
The two leaders swapped gifts, according to the White House and Buckingham Palace: Charles gave Trump a framed facsimile of the 1879 plans for the Resolute Desk that sits in the Oval Office, and the queen gave first lady Melania Trump a brooch made by Fiona Rae, a British jewelry designer.
Trump gave Charles a copy of a 1785 letter written by John Adams to John Jay in which Adams discussed the emotional experience of meeting King George when he became the first U.S. ambassador to Britain. The first lady gave Camilla six custom silver Tiffany spoons and some honey from the White House beehives.
Security was tight at the White House ceremony three days after a gunman attempted to storm the White House correspondents’ dinner Saturday, but officials have said that the king’s engagements would proceed as planned.
Some British policymakers like to boast about a “special relationship” — one that American officials have sometimes said is more special to London than to Washington. The British ambassador to the United States, Christian Turner, acknowledged this year that the idea of a “special relationship” was out of date, according to comments reported Tuesday by the Financial Times.
The idea of a special relationship is “quite nostalgic, it’s quite backwards-looking, and it has a lot of baggage about it,” Turner said, according to a recording obtained by the Financial Times of the ambassador speaking to a group of British schoolchildren in February.
“I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States, and that is probably Israel,” Turner said, adding that London and Washington have a deep and shared history.
“These were private, informal comments made to a group of UK sixth-form students visiting the US in early February. They are certainly not any reflection of the UK Government’s position,” the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said in a statement.
Mariana Alfaro contributed to this report.
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