It’s unclear how often President Donald Trump holds an afternoon tea session at the White House, deviating from his standard drink – a calorie-free dark lemonade. In any case, it is certain that his chef will put on the tea kettle on Monday to greet King Charles III. and Queen Camilla, who are traveling to Washington on a state visit.
Buckingham Palace announced in advance that it would be “a private tea” – presumably to prevent the possibility that the host would include the royal couple in one of his popular spontaneous press conferences, with which the Ukrainian president had bad experiences around a year ago.
In general, the palace made an effort to present Charles’ visit as a rather non-political event. The purpose is “to celebrate with the American people the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.” The visit is an opportunity to raise awareness of our shared history and to appreciate the breadth of economic, security and cultural relations as well as the deep interpersonal connections on both sides of the Atlantic.
The second time that the British King is invited to give a speech
The private tea will be followed by a garden party on the lawn of the presidential residence in Washington, with guests symbolizing the close ties between the two nations. Later, the guests accept the military honors of the host country; Charles meets Trump for a personal conversation while Camilla chats with the First Lady. The next item on the long day’s program is an address to both chambers of Congress, before the state banquet in the White House in the evening.
It is only the second time in two and a half centuries that the head of state of the country from whose rule the American colonies forcibly liberated themselves in 1776 has been invited to speak by the American Parliament. Previously, only Charles’ mother, Elizabeth II, had the honor – that was in 1991, also in an anniversary year of American independence.
However, when it comes to dealing with American presidents, Queen Elizabeth holds records that her son will have difficulty equaling during his time on the British throne. The former queen met twelve presidents during her reign, or even 13 if you count Harry Truman, whom she met in Washington in 1951 while still crown princess but already as the official representative of the United Kingdom. Her father, George VI, had been the first British monarch since American independence to cross the Atlantic to pay an official visit to the breakaway states shortly before the start of World War II.
Jimmy Carter placed a kiss on the Queen Mother’s lips
The commander in chief of the American World War II forces, Dwight D. Eisenhower, later had several meetings with the queen as president. In 1960 he was a guest at the royal summer residence of Balmoral in Scotland, where he was served – presumably for tea – scones, English shortcrust pastry cakes with thick cream and strawberry jam. The pastry was so popular that the Queen sent the recipe to the States. A year later, the Kennedys came to London on an official visit, which raised Elisabeth’s question as to whether Jacqueline Kennedy’s sister, Lee Radziwill, could be on the guest list for the state banquet, as she was divorced and in her second marriage.
Over time, the protocol challenges and misfortunes changed. President Jimmy Carter planted a kiss on Queen Mother Elizabeth’s lips in 1977, George W. Bush dragged the queen to a baseball game, and Michelle Obama made the faux pas of touching her shoulder.
Donald Trump, whom the monarch welcomed in his first term in office, made a mishap by simply stomping onto the lawn of the parade ground in front of her to inspect the honorary formation that had arrived. While observers of the royal family complained at the time that it was inappropriate for the monarch to advance ahead, Robert Hardman, one of the queen’s biographers, judged that Trump had behaved in accordance with protocol at that moment, as the guest of honor was always the first to walk through the honorary formation.
Trump called the king “Charles the Conqueror”
Hardman was able to question Trump himself about his relationship with the queen and recently claimed that the president was upset because he had allegedly behaved rudely towards the queen. The biographer judges that the two probably got along well together. They both have Scottish ancestry through their mothers. Trump asked Elizabeth II who her favorite president was, but she evaded that in her answer. Trump is said to have assessed this with the realization that such diplomatic skills were probably the reason why the Queen was able to stay on the throne for 70 years.
Also Charles III. has already gained a personal impression of Trump; After all, it was only in September, at the very beginning of his second term in office, that he granted the President the honor of a second state visit to the United Kingdom. Trump expressed his thanks, among other things, by giving his host the nickname “Charles the Conqueror” after he heard during his visit that there was once a conqueror named William who took over the English kingdom for the Normans. “They have such wonderful names there,” Trump enthused on the flight home – which, given his recent presidential actions, suggests that he might like the title “Donald the Conqueror.”
Meanwhile, the British government is no longer in the American leader’s favor after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer refused to go to war against Iran alongside Trump. Since then, the American commander-in-chief has decided that the British aircraft carriers are just “toys”; Bilateral relations are in a “sad state”.
But that doesn’t have to scare Charles on his good-weather mission. In 1957, Elizabeth’s state visit to Eisenhower served a similar purpose; At the time, Americans were angered by British and French high-handedness in taking control of the Suez Canal. The American president threatened that he would drive Britain, which was heavily in debt after the war, into bankruptcy – and the British government then sent its young queen as its most precious jewel to successfully prevent this.
