THE recent visit by Britain’s King Charles III to Washington was essentially a repair job to reduce the schism between a disgruntled US President Donald Trump and two of King Charles’s prime ministers — British Prime Minister Keith Starmer and Canada’s PM Mark Carney.
This latest détente royale is between two septuagenarians: Charles is 77 years old, and Trump 79. At times, the glittering display of gilded pageantry appeared no more (to adapt playwright John Osborne’s aphorism) than a gold filling in the cavity of a relationship in decay.
Before King Charles’ arrival, the otherwise sober British paper Financial Times tried to derail the visit by revealing an aside made by UK Ambassador Sir Christian Turner to some schoolchildren in mid-February this year, soon after he had taken over, after the recall of the disgraced Lord Mandelson.
With more truth than the discretion that distinguished his tenure as high commissioner in Islamabad (2019-2023), Sir Christian described the UK-US special relationship as “nostalgic” and “backwards-looking”, adding that if the US has a special relationship, it is probably with Israel. The Foreign Office instantly sprang to his defence, explaining that his comments were “private” and “informal”, and did not reflect the UK government’s position.
Neither Trump nor Charles mentioned anything controversial.
Sir Christian’s gaffe will soon be forgotten. What will be remembered, though, are his insertions (discernible to anyone familiar with his penmanship) in the speeches his king made to the US Joint Meeting of Congress on April 28 and at the White House state dinner the following night.
The King left no headstone unturned — Shakespeare, Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Churchill, Lincoln, F.D. Roosevelt, Marshall and Eisenhower, J.F. Kennedy, Kissinger, and his own royal ancestors from King George III.
He mentioned the visits to the US of his grandparents in 1939 when Britain snuggled up to America for support in the fight against Nazi Germany. He alluded to his mother’s visit in 1957 for America’s help after Britain’s disastrous Suez misadventure. He paraphrased Lincoln’s magisterial Gettysburg address of 1863: “The world may little note what we say, but will never forget what we do.”
And then, to lighten the mood, Charles reminded Trump at the state dinner: “Indeed, you recently commented, Mr President, that if it were not for the United States, European countries would be speaking German. Dare I say that, if it wasn’t for us, you’d be speaking French!” (Incidentally, Charles’s father spoke fluent German and his mother accentless French.)
The king’s speeches are significant not so much for their content as for their omissions. He mentioned the pledges of Nato members to keep “North Americans and Europeans safe” from common adversaries and spoke of Ukraine, but not of Iran. He referred to “the most ambitious submarine programme in history, AUKUS (Australia, UK and the US), but avoided the refusal of Australia and the UK to take an offensive role in the US-Israeli war against Iran.
President Trump was of course less inhibited and occasionally flippant. He confessed that his mother was at heart a monarchist who nursed a crush on the then- young Prince Charles. This being the 250th anniversary of US independence, Trump spoke of the debt “an English-speaking world” owes to Great Britain “upon which the sun never sets”. He elaborated: “Today, most of Britain’s former colonies have no idea what they truly owe to this towering legacy of law, liberty and British custom that they were given. We were given that, and it was a great, great gift.”
Of his latest bête noire Iran, Trump spoke elliptically: “We have militarily defeated that particular opponent, and we’re never gonna let that opponent ever — Charles agrees with me, even more than I do — we’re never gonna let that opponent have a nuclear weapon.”
Neither Trump nor Charles made mention of anything darkly controversial: Gaza, Lebanon, the blockade and counter-blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. Nor of the reluctance of the EU, the UK or the Gulf Arabs to join the US-Israel coalition against Iran.
Have the Arab rulers of the Khaleej forgotten the Quranic verse revealed on the occasion of the Treaty of Hudaibiya? “Those of the desert Arabs who remained behind will say to you, ‘Our properties and our families kept us busy, so ask forgiveness for us’. They say with their tongues what is not in their hearts” (48:11).
Will a US-Iran deal (whenever, if ever) restore the Gulf countries to a pre-February 2026 “glad confident morning”? Will they regret their Hamelin-like devotion to Trump, the disappointment Robert Browning complained of his ideal William Wordsworth: “We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him, […] / Made him our pattern to live and to die!”
The writer is an author.
Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2026