King Charles III opened his speech to Congress by thanking members of the joint meeting and the American people for welcoming him and his party to the United States to mark what he called the “semi-quincentennial year of the Declaration of Independence.” He said the relationship between the two countries has been “interlinked” for a long span of time, moving beyond a narrow 250-year view to “over four centuries,” and he cited as evidence of closeness a line from Oscar Wilde about sharing almost everything except language.
He said the two governments met “in times of great uncertainty,” describing conflict across regions stretching “from Europe to the Middle East,” and he also referenced “the aftermath of the incident not far from this great building that sought to harm the leadership of your nation and to foment wider fear and discord.” From there, Charles said he would not treat differences between the two countries as a reason to fracture cooperation, saying “such acts of violence will never succeed” and that, “Whatever our differences,” the two nations stand together to uphold democracy and protect “all our people from harm.”
Charles framed the U.K.-U.S. partnership as one that grew out of dispute rather than unity from the start, while also arguing it rests on shared democratic values. He said the founding principle of the U.S. Congress—“no taxation without representation”—reflected “a fundamental disagreement between us,” while also expressing “a shared democratic value which you inherited from us.” He added that, despite the original clash, “our nations are in fact instinctively like-minded” because of “the common democratic, legal and social traditions” behind governance in both countries.
He then tied those inherited institutions and rights language to specific historical touchpoints. Charles referenced the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society’s calculation that Magna Carta has been cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789, and he said Magna Carta served as a foundation for the idea that executive power is subject to checks and balances. He also described a stone by the River Thames at Runnymede marking that an acre of the signing site was given to the United States, in memory of President John F. Kennedy.
The speech linked the anniversary and historical references to current cooperation in security and defense. Charles said the challenges facing the countries were “too great for any one nation to bear alone,” and he argued that the alliance “cannot rest on past achievements” but must instead build for the future. He pointed to defense spending and transformation in the United Kingdom, saying his country has committed to what he described as “the biggest sustained increase in defense spending since the Cold War.”
He also cited specific areas of defense cooperation and allied structures. Charles said thousands of U.S. service personnel, defense officials and their families were stationed in the United Kingdom as British personnel serve across “30 American states,” and he said the two countries are “building F-35s together.” He added that the U.K. and U.S. have agreed on what he called “the most ambitious submarine program in history, AUKUS,” in partnership with Australia, and he said these efforts are designed to build “greater shared resilience” for future generations.
Charles broadened the U.S.-U.K. relationship beyond defense to law, economics, science, and culture. He described the rule of law—“the certainty of stable and accessible rules” and an “independent judiciary”—as a basis for prosperity and said governments are concluding new economic and technology agreements. He also cited collaboration in areas including nuclear fusion, quantum computing, artificial intelligence and drug discovery, and he referenced the scale of bilateral trade and mutual investment figures and the idea that such ties support jobs on both sides of the Atlantic.
In the later part of the address, Charles returned to the relationship’s moral and historical framing, including reconciliation and responsibility to safeguard nature. He described “the story of the United Kingdom and the United States” as one of “reconciliation, renewal and remarkable partnership,” and he referenced the reconciliation of divisive ties dating back to what he described as 250 years ago. He closed by saying the two countries should “rededicate ourselves to each other” in the “selfless service” of peoples in the United States and beyond, adding “God bless the United States and God bless the United Kingdom.”