Eliot Wilson
When Prime Minister Keir Starmer paid his first visit to President Trump in the Oval Office in February, the stakes were high. Starmer, a stiffly self-righteous human rights lawyer from the progressive left, did not seem to have much in common with the bloviator-in-chief. Yet everyone was aware that the immediate future of the “special relationship” was on the table. For Britain, the stakes could not be higher.
The prime minister had a secret weapon. Capitalizing on Trump’s opening bonhomie, he produced a letter to the president from King Charles III.
“This is a letter from the king,” Starmer explained. “An invitation for a second state visit. This is really special. It’s never been done before.”
It was an uncharacteristically folksy, cracker-barrel performance, but it achieved exactly what the prime minister had hoped for. Trump was delighted. “The answer is yes,” Trump replied. “Your country is a fantastic country.”
No one in London had been able to take Trump’s positive attitude as a given. The meeting between the two leaders had promised any number of traps and hazards, but the opening bid of a missive from the 76-year-old hereditary sovereign of the United Kingdom had been decisive. The state visit will take place in a few days, from Sept. 17 to 19.
It is not entirely accurate that a second state visit has “never been done before.” Certainly, Trump is the first American president to be invited twice, but President Raymond Poincaré of France visited Britain in 1913 and 1919. Six crowned heads of Europe have also made two state visits. But there was enough truth in what Starmer said to make it plausible and persuasive, recognizing that Trump adores setting new precedents.
The British monarchy represents soft power at its peak. It is fashionable at the moment to take cynicism as a touchstone and imagine that realpolitik of a brutal and transactional kind represents sophisticated thought. This is the philosophy that has seen political scientist John Mearsheimer attract a loyal and contrarian following for his argument that NATO and the U.S. are ultimately to blame for the war in Ukraine.
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