I simply cannot emphasize enough how much Europe is freaking out right now because Donald Trump “won” the election. European leaders were at their wit’s end dealing with Trump in his first term, and they fully understand that his second term is going to be a lot worse. There are already reports that Trump will follow through on his long-standing wish of removing America from NATO. Even if he’s unsuccessful in that, he’ll be able to significantly weaken NATO and America’s NATO alliances. I certainly believe that he’ll cut off Ukraine and give Putin the greenlight to do whatever he wants there. That being said, Trump is extremely stupid and susceptible to flattery, and he loves nothing more than when European leaders or European royals are nice to him. Emmanuel Macron has his plan in place for how to deal with Trump, and it looks like Keir Starmer’s plan is just giving Trump a lot of facetime with King Charles and the royals.
The King is ready to use the Royal Family’s much-vaunted soft power to help smooth relations between Britain and Donald Trump’s incoming US administration. Keir Starmer has been working closely with the monarch on the international stage since July but Trump’s promise to shake up the world order now presents a serious challenge to the oft-cited special relationship between the two countries.
Quite how much King Charles or his family can do to help remains to be seen but once the new president takes office in January it is likely that the royals will be deployed to help get over Britain’s worldview to the new US president. The 75-year-old monarch has known Donald and Melania Trump and their children for years and, while they disagree on the threat from climate change and there are potential tensions on numerous other issues – not least Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex – their personal friendship may stand the UK in good stead.
Starmer and his colleagues have spent the past few months trying to build ties with Trump and his team but face a few bumps in the road ahead. Trump’s closeness to Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Elon Musk – the billionaire X owner who has criticised Starmer over his handling of this summer’s race riots and claims of two-tier policing, and now inheritance tax raids on farmers – is a potential problem.
A row over Labour sending 100 current or former staff across the Atlantic to campaign for Kamala Harris in their spare time has not helped the new Government’s relationship with the incoming Republican administration. Nor has previous criticism of Trump from senior Labour figures, including the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, former frontbencher Emily Thornberry, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Some British diplomats have privately expressed frustration with what they see as the new Government’s naivety and missteps, as well as the foreign affairs inexperience of Lammy and his ministerial team. But then others have pointed out that other world leaders have made similar criticism of Trump and survived: Johnson, for example, worked well with Trump despite describing him as “clearly out of his mind” and “unfit for office” a year before he was elected president the first time.
But the royals can bring an extra element of diplomacy, via official and state visits, informal chats, and meetings at international gatherings. Trump owns a golf course near Aberdeen. Might a private trip to Scotland allow the King to entertain him over tea at Balmoral? Time will tell. The US president might also be persuaded stop over in Britain en route to a Nato summit in The Hague next June or come to London on a European tour in his first year in office.
Evie Aspinall, director of the British Foreign Policy Group think-tank, said there would be much that the Starmer and Trump administrations would disagree on in the next few years so the UK would have to be creative in its diplomacy.
“I do think that the Royal Family is a really good way for the UK to strengthen relations, not least because, Donald Trump, he loves family, he loves the pomp of the monarchy and I think that’s an exciting way for him to feel important,” she said. “Being seen to be recognised by the Royal Family is something, I think, that he would like. So actually the more we can bring in people like King Charles, who he particularly likes, I think there’s an opportunity to get a basis of strong relations from that.”
David Lammy suggested an inbound state visit might come later in Trump’s presidency, even though the precedent for previous second-term presidents such as George W Bush and Barack Obama was tea or lunch at Windsor Castle with the monarch.
The Foreign Secretary, who met Trump for dinner in New York in September despite his previous criticism, told the BBC’s Newscast podcast: “State visits take a while to organise. So in the next year, I’ve got to tell you, I think that would be a bit of a tall order. But he was genuine in his respect and his affection for the Royal Family. It is always the case that as head of state the King plays an important role. We want to be generous with our American friends and as they will be, I imagine with us, particularly in a second term.”
