As President Donald Trump arrives in the U.K. for his unprecedented second state visit, officials involved in his first say there are tried and tested strategies the palace and No. 10 can deploy to manage an unpredictable U.S. leader with a record of causing controversy in Britain. Here’s what they told POLITICO’s Westminster Insider podcast about keeping things on track.
‘Please don’t do that, it would upset the queen‘
King Charles and the royal family represent the U.K.’s best hope of taming Trump during his stay.
That’s according to former International Development Minister Alan Duncan, who served under former Prime Minister Theresa May and attended the last state visit.
Duncan remembered: “The challenge was to persuade the president that this is a visit of state dignity, not of political comment.”
He said that last time a “great weapon” had been to say, “Oh, please don’t do that, it would upset the queen.”
The powerful aura of the royal family, Duncan said, ensured Trump “behaved faultlessly.” Though now of course Trump’s opposite number is the king, who Duncan predicts “will handle it brilliantly.”
The former Conservative minister told the podcast that it’s when Trump is most enamored with the royal family that those in government have the best chance of making a breakthrough on political matters. “The hope would be that Trump is enjoying basking in the beauty of it all, and that perhaps you can just say, ‘Thank you so much for coming, Mr. President, and oh, you’ve been absolutely fantastic, by the way, can you…?’”
But, he advised, keep the demands simple: “Don’t over-ram it. Just see if you can bank something you want to.”
Get Trump one-on-one
Gavin Barwell was May’s chief of staff during Trump’s previous state visit in 2019.
He remembered how the No. 10 team was on high alert due to the events that occurred in the president’s U.K. trip the previous year, which wasn’t a full state visit (though there were royal engagements involving the queen).
On that 2018 tour, before a Trump-May bilateral meeting scheduled at the prestigious Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, the U.S. president had given an interview to the Sun newspaper criticizing May’s Brexit proposals.
The intervention could not have come at a worse time for the embattled May, who was trying to convince the right of her party to support her vision of Brexit.
Barwell told Westminster Insider that he and his team were despondent — and suspected that some prominent pro-Brexit politicians may have “got to him” before Trump came over.
But the former aide said that despite the difficult press that morning, the prime minister was confident she would be able to talk Trump round during their meeting at Blenheim. And it worked.
“Once he was here, he was actually sweetness and light,” said Barwell, who described Trump as “charming” in person. “When he was with Theresa and she talked him through how she saw things, he was uber polite at the press conference afterwards.”
Trump dismissed the reports of his criticism as “fake news” at the Blenheim press conference and publicly stated his support for the prime minister.
It’s unclear whether Trump will do another bombshell interview during his visit, or whether he has learned to make fewer interventions into British domestic politics this time around.
But if his criticism of London Mayor Sadiq Khan this summer is anything to go by, Trump is as freewheeling as ever when it comes to making things awkward for his hosts.
Barwell said he believes Trump “genuinely has a warmth for this country” but that “it’s not always replicated in what he does in policy terms.”
Avoid angry British voters
No. 10 insiders say Britain’s best hopes of diplomatic progress are to make the president feel as welcome as possible.
But as is the case every time Trump is in town, his arrival is expected to be met with protests on the streets of London.
While the giant diaper-wearing balloon that greeted him in his first term was great for TV news pictures, if you are at the center of the No. 10 operation, avoiding traps like the blimp and accompanying demonstrations presents difficult logistical challenges.
Barwell advised: “Focus the visit on locations where those things are not right in his face, and that means for example not being in central London.”
He added: “I think we did that very effectively with the first visit and I’m pretty confident the same thing is going to happen this time around.”
With Buckingham Palace undergoing restoration works and parliament in recess for party conference season, Trump will be steering clear of London and will not be addressing MPs in Westminster.
Duncan believes this is “quite fortuitous.” He told the podcast: “It only takes one MP to shout and scream for it to be a quick flip from triumph into disaster.”
Give Trump what he likes
Royal historian Robert Hardman attended Trump’s 2019 state visit and says the value of the pomp and ceremony cannot be overstated: “Once you’re inside the castle, everything will be perfect.”
He anticipated the reception at Windsor.
“There’ll be fresh flowers everywhere, there will be a welcome lunch and every menu will have been treble checked with the presidential chef to check it’s all the right thing.”
Though the palace might not offer Trump his much-loved McDonald’s fast food fix, Hardman does have one tip that he remembers from 2019.
“One of the first things that President Trump was served by the late queen at the welcome lunch was doughnuts. You don’t often get doughnuts at state lunches but President Trump liked doughnuts and there they were,” Hardman said.
He added that when it comes to the royal engagements, nothing is left to chance: “It’s that kind of level of detail right through to the gifts and the banquet will look absolutely spectacular.”
Big Mac or no Big Mac, Trump, it seems fair to suggest, will be lovin’ it.
The post How to survive a Trump state visit — from people who’ve been there appeared first on Politico.
