{"id":26117,"date":"2026-04-30T23:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T23:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/26117\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T23:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T23:13:08","slug":"britains-king-charles-iii-says-quick-goodbye-to-trump-heads-to-appalachian-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/26117\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain’s King Charles III says quick goodbye to Trump, heads to Appalachian mountains"},"content":{"rendered":"

Front Royal, Virginia
Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s King Charles III and Queen Camilla began wrapping up their four-day state visit to the US with a very quick stop by the White House to bid farewell to US President Donald Trump on Thursday, having already charmed him at a formal dinner two days prior.<\/p>\n

After barely six minutes inside, Charles, whose heart has always been in the countryside, and Camilla departed to spend their final hours in small-town America and Appalachian wilderness: marching bands, Little League baseball, bluegrass music, Girl Scouts and the bird-filled Blue Ridge Mountains were all on the itinerary.<\/p>\n

\"\"
US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Britain\u2019s King Charles III next to first lady Melania Trump and Queen Camilla as the King and Queen depart Washington on the final day of their state visit, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on 30th April, 2026. PICTURE: Reuters\/Jessica Koscielniak<\/p>\n

The official reason for the royal trip was to mark the 250th anniversary of the US winning its independence from monarchy and British colonial rule, cueing multiple wry jokes from Charles in speeches to Washington\u2019s elite about his fourth great-grandfather George III being on the losing side of the American Revolutionary War.<\/p>\n

But it was also designed to mend what Charles called in Tuesday\u2019s state dinner with Trump an \u201cunbreakable bond\u201d and \u201cindispensable alliance\u201d between the two countries, lately strained by the UK, alongside other European allies, declining to join the two-month-old US-Israeli war against Iran.<\/p>\n

It seemed to work. As enraged as he has been by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Trump told reporters at some length how fond he was of his \u201cgreat friend\u201d Charles the day after their dinner: \u201cWhen you like the king of a country so much, it probably helps your relationship with the prime minister.\u201d<\/p>\n

Posing for photographs outside the White House\u2019s South Portico on Thursday morning, Trump, who sometimes revels in his political opponents denouncing him as a would-be king, pointed to the monarch and said: \u201cHe\u2019s the greatest king, in my book.\u201d The two men, joined by Camilla and US first lady Melania Trump, went inside, came back out six minutes later, and the royals got in their car to tour several sites in Virginia.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat people,\u201d Trump, who ran on an anti-immigration platform, said toward the departing motorcade, after giving it a wave and a thumbs up. \u201cWe need more people like that in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

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What the President meant by \u201cpeople like that\u201d was unclear, although his staff may have provided a clue when they released a photograph of Charles and Trump smiling together earlier in the week with the briefest of captions: \u201cTWO KINGS\u201d followed by a crown emoji.<\/p>\n

Charles views \u2018North American tradition\u2019 of potluck
The royal trip has seen Charles draw smiles from lawmakers in the US Congress to young Harlem school children at an urban farm in New York City. Among the biggest smiles of all came from Trump himself, as Charles revealed a gift for the president at Tuesday\u2019s White House reception: the original bell that hung from the conning tower of a Royal Navy submarine launched from a UK shipyard in 1944 and named HMS Trump.<\/p>\n

Before heading to a street party in the small Virginia town of Front Royal, Charles crossed the Potomac River to pause at Arlington National Cemetery, a venerated site where tens of thousands of the country\u2019s war dead are buried. He was greeted by a 21-gun salute before laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. On Wednesday the King and Queen commemorated victims of al-Qaeda\u2019s attack on New York City on 11th September, 2001, placing flowers and a hand-written note at the memorial where the World Trade Center\u2019s twin towers once stood.<\/p>\n

In the streets of Front Royal, home to about 15,000 people, tiny American and British flags were distributed before the arrival of who locals agreed was the most famous person the town has welcomed since 1950, when the singer and actor Bing Crosby made an unforgettable visit.<\/p>\n

Tables were laden with apple-butter donuts, pulled pork, crab tots, jerk chicken wings, burgers, custard, pizzas and Girl Scouts\u2019 cookies in what Buckingham Palace explained in an advisory was the apparently exotic \u201cNorth American tradition\u201d of \u201ca \u2018potluck\u2019 meal.\u201d Charles and Camilla looked at the food and asked questions, but did not eat it.<\/p>\n

\"\"
King Charles speaks with members of the Monacan Indian Nation during a visit at Dickey Ridge Visitor Center at Shenandoah National Park on the final day of the state visit of King Charles and Queen Camilla, in Front Royal, Virginia, US, on 30th April, 2026. PICTURE: Chip Somodevilla\/Pool via Reuters<\/p>\n

Charles wondered where a local restaurant got its oysters. The answer was: nearby Chesapeake Bay.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish that I was on old Rocky Top, down in the Tennessee hills,\u201d sang a bluegrass band in a paean to simple mountain life as Charles and Camilla stopped to listen. \u201cAin\u2019t no smoggy smoke on Rocky Top, ain\u2019t no telephone bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

They spent about 40 minutes at the party before continuing their tour, greeting the mayor, the Virginia Governor, a group of cloggers and a pen filled with Kerry Hill sheep, a breed native to Wales.<\/p>\n

Later in the day, Charles will fly to Bermuda for his first visit as sovereign to the British territory that, unlike the US, has not obtained independence.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Additional reporting by TIM REID<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Front Royal, VirginiaReuters Britain\u2019s King Charles III and Queen Camilla began wrapping up their four-day state visit to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11630,1539,13,361,1049,11631,1518,1827],"class_list":{"0":"post-26117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"tag-appalachian-mountains","9":"tag-bermuda","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-king-charles-iii","13":"tag-potluck","14":"tag-queen-camilla","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116496197559923405","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}