King Charles III returned from a four-day visit to Washington, New York and Virginia with his standing at home enhanced and his American host effusively grateful, a conclusion that surprised some in the United Kingdom who had feared the trip might embarrass the crown.
The visit, carried out at the request of the British government and timed to help celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States, was choreographed to project unity even as the prime minister, Keir Starmer, remains in Trump’s crosshairs. The president has lambasted Starmer for refusing to join U.S. military strikes on Iran and dismissed him as “not Winston Churchill.”
Yet Trump’s personal fondness for the monarchy appeared to override those tensions. After hosting Charles and Queen Camilla for a white-tie state dinner, he told Sky News that the king is “a much different person than your prime minister,” adding that Starmer “has to learn to deal the way he deals, and he’ll do a lot better.”
The centerpiece of the trip was Charles’s speech to Congress, in which he made no direct mention of Trump’s policies but used the language of shared values to draw stark contrasts. With what the Associated Press described as “regal understatement,” he stressed the essential role of NATO, called for “unyielding resolve” in backing Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, and underlined the threat posed by climate change — all positions at odds with the current U.S. administration’s posture.
The speech drew multiple standing ovations from both Republicans and Democrats. “Apart from the section on the natural world and the environment, both Republicans and Democrats stood up and applauded,” said Kristofer Allerfeldt, a University of Exeter professor of American history.
Historian Anthony Seldon told The Guardian the king had judged the moment “incredibly well: very brave, very smart, very clever.” Andrew Lownie, author of a biography of Prince Andrew, called the address “the best defense of the monarchy in years.”
Charles also touched on sexual abuse, a sensitive topic at home given the scandal surrounding his brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who faces a police investigation over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. The king did not meet directly with Epstein victims who had requested a meeting, but in his congressional speech he spoke of the need to “support victims of some of the ills that, so tragically, exist in both our societies today.”
At the state banquet, Charles lightened the mood with a joke about British troops burning down the White House in 1814, drawing laughter from the room. But he also appeared to breach the convention that royal conversations remain private when Trump told reporters that “Charles agrees with me, even more than I do” that Iran must never have nuclear weapons, and that “if that were up to him,” the king would have backed the U.S. approach on Ukraine.
Buckingham Palace responded that the king is “naturally mindful of his government’s longstanding and well-known position on the prevention of nuclear proliferation.”
After the royal couple departed, Trump announced he was lifting some tariffs on Scotch whisky “in honor of the King and Queen of the United Kingdom.” The palace issued a statement saying the king “sends his sincere gratitude for a decision that will make an important difference to the British whisky industry and the livelihoods it supports.”
Allerfeldt said Charles had “definitely clawed back some of the prestige of the monarchy” through the trip’s assured performance. But he cautioned that the diplomatic boost may be short-lived. “In the short term probably yes, in the long term probably no,” he said.
The visit, he added, had done something more personal: “He’s done us proud.”