The deployment of Britain’s most potent soft power armament to America will place King Charles in the centre of Donald Trump’s increasingly irrational and chaotic world and demand that he demonstrate weapons grade sang froid.
Just days after the US president survived his third assassination attempt, the visit by the British monarch could not come at a more heightened time.
After the shooting incident at the Hilton Hotel on Saturday night, the US president described Charles as “brave” as the trip was confirmed as still going ahead: “The King coming and we’re going to have a great time.
“He’s a great guy, and we look forward to it. He’s really a fantastic person and a tremendous representative, and he’s brave. We’re gonna have a great time. And he represents his nation like nobody else can do.”
When they land in America today, the King and Queen will be hosted by an administration that is, effectively, ruled by one man. Trump has shown he endorses the claims of many of his senior staff that he is following a divinely inspired path.
He has not invoked the notion that he is ruling by divine right – leaving that for others. But in posting pictures of himself either as Christ or a best friend with the son of god, he’s come pretty close and is showing increasing signs that he believes his power to be without limits.
King Charles III, as supreme governor of the Church of England, represents his country as a constitutional monarch, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth – and Defender of the Faith.
He has a real role in religious leadership but it is the mundane that will be toughest for him to navigate – notably the the cavalier attitude of the Trump administration to truth, the rule of law (home and abroad) and the US constitution (including the separation of state from church).
Therein lies Britain’s soft power opportunity. At military parades, tea parties, garden parties, banquets and above all at his address to both houses of Congress, Charles will have the opportunity to show dignity where there is little.
While Sir Keir Starmer has opted to enable Trump’s most narcissistic tendencies and the secretary general of Nato, Mark Rutte, has resorted to outright personal debasement in referring to the US president as “Daddy” to keep him on side, the King can rise above all that and show Americans there is another way.
Trump will have ample opportunity for vainglorious buffoonery,Cthough this may be briefly tempered by last weekend’s shooting. His sidekick Pete Hegseth may blurt out disparaging remarks about Britain and Nato “cowardice”. Trump’s religious adviser Paula White-Cain may feel the Holy Spirit come upon her. All King Charles has to do is remain aloof from such antics.
The sight of the actual head of a church, who is also a real king, remaining impassive in the face of Trump’s finest will remind the US president’s republican voters of what style and dignity used to look like.
They will recall Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, both presidents George Bush and wonder why the 47th incumbent of the White House looks so peevish next to King Charles.
At the state banquet they will cast their eyes along the televised table to see anti-vax fanatics like health secretary Robert Kennedy, national security adviser Tulsi Gabbard who has been a long standing apologist for Vladimir Putin, and Mark Mullin, who has Walter Mitty claims of military service, and curl their toes with embarrassment
The queen will hold meetings with groups campaigning against domestic abuse and violence against women, a cause she has championed for years.
The royal couple will quietly show they may silently disapprove of the Trump administration’s attachment to the racist conspiracy known as the “great replacement theory” – which supposes that white Europeans are being replaced by non-white immigrants – if their visit to New York’s multicultural Harlem district still goes ahead amid reviewed security measures.
But these are quiet and signified gestures of principle.
The Queen will mark the centenary of Winnie the Pooh at a literacy event. One can imagine that the royal couple base their philosophy of how to dominate a tour of America on the wisdom of Pooh and the contrasting dignity it brings: “Doing nothing often leads to the very best of something”.
