LONDON — In the second coming of The Donald, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer may have to play his diplomatic Trump card.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House is set to put the U.K.-U.S. “special relationship” to the test. There are looming tariffs, strong differences of opinion on Ukraine and China — and public fights between Starmer and key players in Trump’s administration. And that’s before he’s even taken office.
“Trump is so unpredictable that I think the U.K. government will really struggle to manage that relationship and to engage constructively,” Evie Aspinall, director of the British Foreign Policy Group think tank, warned.
But Britain does have at least one ace up its sleeve — a tradition of pomp and ceremony that can help flatter the U.S. president and satisfy his love of spectacle, even if won’t iron out all the kinks in the special relationship.
Royal treatment
Despite their largely ceremonial status in modern Britain, the royal family is a potent international brand at a time when the country has rapidly cycled through elected leaders.
“The continuity they have is way beyond anything any minister has,” a former Foreign Office official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said of the royal family.
Robert Hardman, author of a biography of Charles III, said that the royals — meant to publicly stay out of politics — have managed to find “a pretty harmonious, happy relationship” with the U.S. regardless of who’s in the White House.
“In soft power terms, other world leaders, other countries are far more interested in the monarchy than they are in Downing Street,” Hardman added.
Indeed, Trump regularly spoke of his affection for the late Queen Elizabeth — a “fantastic woman” with whom he boasted of a “great relationship” after meeting her on visits to the U.K. in his first term. He’s similarly praised her son King Charles as a “really good person” — and talked up his meetings with the royals as “a piece of history at the highest level.”
Prince William — the heir to the throne — has already won Trump’s unique style of approval too. The pair met in Paris at the reopening of Notre Dame. The incoming president’s verdict? William is a “good-looking guy” who looked even “better in person.”
Trump clearly relished his encounters with royalty in his first term. And his late mother’s Scottish ancestry — not to mention his string of Scottish golf courses — gives the president an affinity with the U.K. that may be to its advantage.
“Trump is a deal maker, but he also is very proud, and he likes big, grand gestures and feeling important,” said Aspinall. “The royal family, to him, is the epitome of ‘I’ve made it,’ and so meeting the royal family is a real opportunity, particularly for him.”
In his first term, Trump enjoyed tea with the Queen at Windsor Castle, a vast royal residence dating back almost 1,000 years.
In 2019, he was given a lavish state visit — despite domestic protests. At Buckingham Palace, Trump inspected the guard of honor — and was given a 41-gun royal salute.
The peak of the pomp was surely the formal state banquet at Buckingham Palace where Trump was treated to a high-class menu including Windsor lamb and strawberry sable. With vast chandeliers, carefully arranged flowers and golden candle stands, it’s easy to see the appeal to a man who burst onto the U.S. political scene riding down a golden escalator.
Veteran British diplomat Tom Fletcher said he would advise Starmer to oil “the wheels of diplomacy” with exactly these kind of plush state visits and banquets. Fletcher told the POLITICO Power Play podcast: “If you have a leader who likes those things more, why not turn them up?”
Staying above politics
Yet all the pomp in the world may not be enough to paper over major policy differences between the two governments.
If Trump goes ahead with his plan to slap tariffs on all U.S. imports, or makes a decisive break with current Western policy to back Ukraine, even serious royal schmoozing is unlikely to cut it — and British officials will be keen to protect the king from any controversy.
“Buckingham Palace will be very conscious of not exposing the king to a situation in which he might be vulnerable, and where something might backfire,” the ex-FCDO official said — noting a clash between Charles’ lifelong environmentalism and Trump’s disdain for renewable energy. “Is the king likely to join Donald Trump on a visit to a wind farm in present circumstances? Probably not.”
Still, said Hardman, the royals can help by repeatedly talking up Britain’s deep military, historical and cultural ties with the U.S. “Both sides would be in the business of accentuating the positives,” he said.
The former FCDO official cited above said Charles’ instincts on tricky political matters will be to ask Starmer: “How can I help? What can I do?”
Prime ministers don’t boss kings around, but, said Harman: “Ultimately, the royals are public servants. If the state wants them to entertain and talk to, meet and get on with whoever’s in the White House, then it’s their duty to do what the elected government wants them to do.”
Pomp and ceremony
A fresh Trump visit to the U.K. is unlikely to be free of controversy.
Just last week, the opposition Liberal Democrats said the firebrand U.S. president — a “threat to peace and prosperity” — should not be afforded the trappings of another state visit unless he agrees to a sit-down summit with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Even so, the British government will be tempted to pull out all the stops for the U.S. president.
“For someone like Trump, where pride is so important and his image is so important, that pomp and ceremony will be really powerful just for his affinity,” said Aspinall. She argued that the royals could even help Britain stand out among republican European nations amid major geopolitical tensions. “If there was a trade war, he might be more sympathetic to the U.K.,” she argued.
“Nobody will be imagining that it’s magic and he [Charles] can do things that other people can’t, but it will enhance the relationship at appropriate times, and he will want to do that quite naturally,” said the ex-FCDO official of the monarch.
With a long list of British worries about the incoming president, Starmer will need all the help he can get.
Anne McElvoy and Peter Snowdon contributed to this report.
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