{"id":28379,"date":"2026-05-04T17:05:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T17:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/28379\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T17:05:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T17:05:53","slug":"king-charles-scores-major-win-as-rubio-backtracks-on-trumps-revenge-plot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/28379\/","title":{"rendered":"King Charles Scores Major Win as Rubio Backtracks on Trump\u2019s Revenge Plot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marco Rubio has desperately backtracked on a petty revenge plot reportedly cooked up by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump, rankled by the United Kingdom\u2019s lack of support for his war in Iran, was reportedly considering re-evaluating the United States\u2019s position on its traditional ally\u2019s claim over the Falkland Islands, a self-governing British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic, where King Charles is head of state.<\/p>\n

This slight was revealed in a leaked Pentagon memo that dropped on the eve of the Monarch\u2019s visit to the U.S. earlier this week. But Rubio, ever the statesman, now insists it was much ado about nothing.<\/p>\n

\"King<\/p>\n

King Charles III, Queen Camilla, President Donald Trump, and First Lady Melania Trump are pictured at the White House on the final day of the King and Queen\u2019s state visit on Thursday. \/ Samir Hussein \/ via REUTERS<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just an email. People are getting overexcited by an email. It was just an email with some ideas,\u201d the secretary of state and potential 2028 presidential candidate told British broadsheet The Telegraph<\/a> before the King\u2019s visit.<\/p>\n

The paper also reported that British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper collared Rubio on the issue in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

However, his statement marks a walkback from the strong rhetoric from the Pentagon, which, after the note dropped, didn\u2019t rule out a reconsideration of D.C.\u2019s position on the Falklands. Spokesperson Kingsley Wilson said the Department of Defense \u201cwill ensure that the president has credible options to ensure that our allies are no longer a paper tiger and instead do their part.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Encyclopaedia<\/p>\n

Encyclopaedia Britannica \/ Universal Images Group via Getty<\/p>\n

The memo, initially reported on by Reuters<\/a>, suggested that the Trump administration could side with Argentina on the argument. Buenos Aires takes a dim view of British claims to the archipelago, which it calls Las Malvinas.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Argentina\u2019s president, Trump ally Javier Milei, encouraged the largely British-identifying islanders known as Kelpers to \u201cgo home\u201d to the U.K. In the last referendum, in 2013, 99.8 percent of the islanders voted to remain a part of the U.K.<\/p>\n

The Telegraph reported that the memo was \u201cthought to have been\u201d drafted by a junior staffer at the Defense Department. \u201cJust an email\u201d or not, it caused uproar in the U.K., whose Army went to war with Argentina over the islands in 1982.<\/p>\n

\"It<\/p>\n

It is understood that Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, Yvette Cooper, pulled Rubio on the issue. \/ Anna Moneymaker \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the U.K.\u2019s Liberal Democrats, even called for King Charles\u2019 state visit to the U.S. to be canceled altogether as a result.<\/p>\n

The visit went ahead without any major hitch and appeared to heal, at least temporarily, the rift between U.S. and U.K. leadership.<\/p>\n

A U.S. State Department spokesman adopted a more diplomatic tone than the Pentagon did on Thursday, stating that the official U.S. position is \u201cone of neutrality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe acknowledge that there are conflicting claims of sovereignty between Argentina and the U.K. We recognize de facto United Kingdom administration of the islands but take no position regarding sovereignty claims of either party,\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marco Rubio has desperately backtracked on a petty revenge plot reportedly cooked up by the Trump administration. President…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9593,12450,2708,5630,3524,12451,12449,3489,5,6,2068],"class_list":{"0":"post-28379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-british-overseas-territory","9":"tag-head-of-state","10":"tag-king-charles","11":"tag-marco-rubio","12":"tag-pentagon","13":"tag-south-atlantic","14":"tag-traditional-ally","15":"tag-trump","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-yvette-cooper"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116517403542697631","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28379","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=28379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}