LONDON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0President Trump arrived in the United Kingdom on Tuesday for a state visit during which the British government hopes a multibillion-dollar technology deal will show the trans-Atlantic bond remains strong despite differences over Ukraine, the Middle East and the future of the Western alliance.<\/p>\n
State visits in Britain blend 21st century diplomacy with royal pageantry. Trump\u2019s two-day trip comes with horse-drawn carriages, military honor guards and a glittering banquet inside a 1,000-year-old castle \u2014 all tailored to a president with a fondness for gilded splendor.<\/p>\n
King Charles III will host Trump at Windsor Castle on Wednesday before talks the next day with Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Chequers, the British leader\u2019s rural retreat.<\/p>\n
Starmer\u2019s office said the visit will demonstrate that \u201cthe U.K.-U.S. relationship is the strongest in the world, built on 250 years of history\u201d \u2014 after that awkward rupture in 1776 \u2014 and bound by shared values of \u201cbelief in the rule of law and open markets.\u201d There was no mention of Trump\u2019s market-crimping fondness for sweeping tariffs.<\/p>\n
The White House expects the two countries will strengthen their relationship during the trip and celebrate the upcoming 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, according to a senior White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. It was unclear how the U.K. was planning to mark that chapter in their shared history.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe trip to the U.K. is going to be incredible,\u201d Trump told reporters Sunday. He said Windsor Castle is \u201csupposed to be amazing\u201d and added: \u201cIt\u2019s going to be very exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s second state visit<\/p>\n
Trump is the first U.S. president to get a second state visit to the U.K. <\/p>\n
The unprecedented nature of the invitation, along with the expectation of lavish pomp and pageantry, holds dual appeal to Trump. The Republican president has glowingly praised the king\u2019s late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, and spoken about how his own Scotland-born mother loved the queen and the monarchy.<\/p>\n
Trump, as he left the White House on Tuesday, noted that during his past state visit he was hosted at Buckingham Palace.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to say one is better than the other, but they say Windsor Castle is the ultimate,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
He also called the king \u201can elegant gentleman\u201d and said \u201che represents the country so well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The president is also royally flattered by exceptional attention and has embraced the grandeur of his office in his second term. He has adorned the normally more austere Oval Office with gold accents, is constructing an expansive ballroom at the White House and has sought to refurbish other Washington buildings to his liking.<\/p>\n
Foreign officials have shown they\u2019re attuned to his tastes. During a visit to the Middle East this year, leaders of Saudi Arabia and Qatar didn\u2019t just roll out a red carpet but dispatched fighter jets to escort Trump\u2019s plane.<\/p>\n
Starmer has already shown he\u2019s adept at charming Trump. Visiting Washington in February, he noted the president\u2019s Oval Office decorating choices and decision to display a bust of Winston Churchill. During Trump\u2019s private trip to Scotland in July, Starmer visited and praised Trump\u2019s golf courses.<\/p>\n
Efforts to woo the president make some members of Starmer\u2019s Labor Party uneasy, and Trump will not address Parliament during his visit, like French President Emmanuel Macron did in July. Lawmakers will be on their annual autumn recess, sparing the government an awkward decision.<\/p>\n
The itinerary in Windsor and at Chequers, both well outside London, also keeps Trump away from a planned mass protest against his visit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis visit is really important to Keir Starmer to show that he\u2019s a statesman,\u201d said Leslie Vinjamuri, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. \u201cBut it\u2019s such a double-edged sword, because he\u2019s going to be a statesman alongside a U.S. president that is not popular in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawless and Price write for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0President Trump arrived in the United Kingdom on Tuesday for a state visit during which the British government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[65915,3971,26001,59,57,58,6906,632,50,11175,65914,13403,1787,54744,10907,3962,56,54,55,65913,3285,16545],"class_list":["post-142278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-british-leader","tag-chequers","tag-decision","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-july","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-president-trump","tag-royal-pageantry","tag-starmer","tag-state-visit","tag-trip","tag-trump","tag-u-k","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-visit","tag-white-house","tag-windsor-castle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}