LONDON − For President Donald Trump, the spectacle may be the point. He likes that kind of thing. And the British royals − a king, queen, two princes, a princess and various other blue-blooded hangers-on − are experts in delivering guards of honor, flyovers, historic carriages, lavish feasts and other forms of gilt-edged pageantry.
Trump is a self-confessed superfan of the British royal family. “I hate to say it, but nobody does it like you people in terms of the pomp and ceremony,” Trump said during a visit to Scotland in July. “Windsor,” he said this week, referring to the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world that, since its founding by William the Conqueror in the 11th century, has been the home of 40 monarchs, is “amazing.”
Trump arrived at Windsor Castle on Sept. 17 for the start of a two-day state visit to the United Kingdom amid overcast, grey skies though the rain held off. His time there will be largely out of the sight of the public because of security concerns and protests and various publicity stunts. There will be no ceremonial carriage procession through Windsor’s narrow streets as enjoyed by French President Emmanuel Macron recently. But he will still be greeted with all the ritualistic hoopla Britain can muster for a presidential charm offensive.
There will be military bands and riders on horseback. Royal salutes will be fired from the castle’s lawn, where a carriage procession will take place. There will be dazzling tiaras and cutlery laid out with a ruler at a banquet inside St. George’s Hall, where medieval armor, pikes and shields line the walls.
“I think for him personally this is a very important visit indeed,” Nigel Farage, a populist ally of Trump’s, said in an interview. Polls show that Farage’s Reform UK party, which has focused its political platform on curtailing immigration, surged in popularity and would likely win an election if held today. “It’s his Scottish mother, his great respect for this country, the royal family, its traditions − the visit means a huge amount to him; a huge amount to him on a personal level.”
Still, Trump’s trip is not entirely void of geopolitics. For a start, there is the fact that this event is even happening.
American presidents routinely travel to Britain for official, working and informal visits. When Trump visited Scotland in July, he was technically on vacation. He opened a new golf course in Aberdeenshire. He also found time to meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.
But state visits, which are hosted by Britain’s monarch acting on government advice and involve glittering, red-carpet treatment aimed at strengthening Britain’s relationship with another country, are relatively rare.
Queen Elizabeth II hosted more than 100 state visits between her accession in 1952 and her death in 2022, according to the Royal Family website. George W. Bush got one in 2003, Barack Obama in 2011. Trump was hosted by Queen Elizabeth II for a state visit during his first presidency in 2019. Now he’s getting a second one, which is unusual.
American presidents are almost never offered a state visit during their second term. Instead, if they visit Britain in that time frame, they are typically invited for tea or lunch with the monarch, as was the case for Bush and Obama.
Tim Bale, a professor of politics and international relations at Queen Mary University of London, said the “whole point” of inviting Trump for a second state visit appears to be aimed at keeping an unpredictable ally “sweet.” Starmer personally handed the invitation to Trump on behalf of King Charles live on television during his visit to the White House in February. Trump said it was a “great, great honor” and noted it was “at Windsor − that’s really something.”
The next month, the United States and Britain announced a trade deal. “The government was hoping Trump would give us a reasonable trade deal,” Bale said. “Or at least less of a bad deal than he’s giving all the other countries.”
The tactic may have worked for now.
Though Trump has imposed a hefty 50% tariff on goods from India as part of his extensive policy actions on import taxes, Britain’s duties have been set at 10%. European Union countries are facing 15% tariffs, and the effective average tariff rate is 18.6%, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University, a nonpartisan policy research center.
During a background call with reporters Sept. 15, White House officials said Trump’s visit would highlight the deep ties between the United States and Britain. The trip also will recognize and celebrate the upcoming 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, a White House official told reporters in the call previewing the trip.
Bale also suspects that Starmer will use Trump’s visit to “lock him into the defense of Europe,” and he said that “keeping him sweet also means he might be less inclined to desert Ukraine” in its war with Russia. After more than three years of fighting, the war has reached a stalemate on both the battlefield and diplomatic fronts.
There will also be more concrete economic affairs and business to attend to.
In its briefing, the White House said the United States and Britain would be signing off on billions of dollars in new investment deals during the visit. The deals are connected to nuclear power research and development and other technology-focused initiatives. The British Embassy in Washington said the partnerships would extend to key technologies, including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, telecommunications and quantum computing.
The U.S. delegation includes first lady Melania Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trump’s confidante and special envoy, Steve Witkoff. It also includes a delegation of U.S. executives, including Jensen Huang, CEO of AI chipmaker Nvidia, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
On Sept. 18, Trump will travel to Chequers, Starmer’s country retreat northwest of London, where the two leaders will tour archives related to Britain’s wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill, hold their official bilateral meeting and host a joint news conference on the grounds of the 16th-century manor house.
Not all bows and curtsies
But the visit may not all be royal- and heritage-themed niceties, bows and curtsies.
During Trump’s first state visit in 2019, he called London’s Labour Party Mayor Sadiq Khan “a stone-cold loser.” He irritated many Britons by suggesting the country’s beloved public health service should somehow be included in trade talks by opening some of its services to American bidders. More than 1 million people signed a petition at the time saying Trump should not be afforded the honor of a state visit because of his comments on immigration and other sensitive issues. Protesters flew a huge inflatable effigy of him known as “Trump Baby” outside Parliament in a stunt that spawned imitators around the world over the course of his first term.
There are some potential land mines this time, too, that could erupt into a different kind of spectacle − a media or diplomatic one − if Trump decides to talk about issues on which the White House and Downing Street diverge.
Britain is expected to join France and other countries in recognizing Palestinian statehood at the U.N. General Assembly in New York later in September. Trump opposes the move, saying it would amount to “rewarding Hamas.”
Many in Trump’s inner circle, including Vice President JD Vance, have portrayed Starmer’s government as leading an authoritarian crackdown on free speech, primarily from right-wing activists, an allegation Britain’s leader vehemently disputes.
More than 150,000 people descended on Britain’s capital Sept. 13 for one of the country’s largest far-right demonstrations in decades. The “Unite the Kingdom” rally was organized by Tommy Robinson, who was convicted of fraud and violent criminal acts. It was attended by billionaire Elon Musk via video link, and some demonstrators held pictures and banners featuring the image of Charlie Kirk, the murdered conservative activist who championed free speech. Robinson billed the march as a demonstration for free speech, saying it was also held in defense of British heritage and culture.
In recent days, Starmer dismissed Peter Mandelson, his ambassador to the United States, because of comments he made years before about his friendship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Trump appeared to have a good working relationship with Mandelson. Meanwhile, as pressure mounts for more information to be released about the Epstein sex trafficking investigation, Trump is continuing to push back strongly on suggestions that he contributed a drawing of a naked woman for a book to mark Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003.
What’s more, a YouGov poll in July found that only 16% of Britons surveyed said they had a positive view of Trump. British police said they have planned for “just about every foreseeable eventuality” ahead of Trump’s visit, but protests are expected, and the British media is full of reports about how Mandelson’s firing and the “ghost of Epstein” will hang over proceedings. King Charles’ brother, Prince Andrew, was also Epstein’s friend, and Andrew’s involvement in related allegations has hampered his access to royal duties.
Still, Matt Beech, who directs the Center for British Politics at the University of Hull, said that unlike his recent predecessors in the Oval Office, Trump is genuinely fond of Britain and Britishness. He said Obama couldn’t get past Britain’s past − its colonial empire. And former President Joe Biden hewed toward Ireland because of his own heritage.
“What you have with Trump,” Beech said, “is someone who’s got Scottish heritage on his mother’s side, who owns property and businesses in Scotland and in that sense is an Anglophile.” Beech said the British government was “pushing on an open door” by inviting Trump to Britain.
A previous version of this story misspelled the name of U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.