President Donald Trump slouches forward, hands clasped in front of him, as Sir Keir Starmer, seated next to him, pulls an envelope from his suit jacket. “It’s my pleasure to bring, from His Majesty the King, a letter,” he says. “An invitation for a second state visit. This is really special. This has never happened before. It’s unprecedented.”
To some, that scene from February last year might have looked like a masterstroke of pragmatic diplomacy by Sir Keir – a knowing wink from the Brits that he was playing his Trump card, appealing to the president’s ego. But as King Charles prepares for his visit to Washington this April, the first by a British sovereign in nearly two decades, it’s fair to say that the diplomatic landscape has shifted dramatically.
In fact, the timing for the King could not be more fraught. Yesterday, the president hit out at Sir Keir, criticising him for not immediately allowing the US to use British bases to attack Iran. One jibe in particular must have been particularly painful for the prime minister, with Trump casting aspersions on his statesmanship, telling the world: “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”
In another interview, Trump claimed that Sir Keir “had not been helpful” and described the transatlantic discord as “very sad”. His barrage of criticisms directed at the prime minister have inevitably raised the question: is the “special relationship” between the US and the UK now irrevocably damaged?
Whether the pomp and ceremony of a royal visit will be able to paper over these cracks is another issue. Trump has always been very receptive to the pageantry that comes with hobnobbing with royalty – but the King is also grappling with a family crisis that may cast another awkward shadow over his interactions with the president.
Just last month, his brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office – the result of an investigation into whether he abused his position as a UK trade envoy to pass confidential information to the late paedophile sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The event reignited the Epstein scandal just as Charles prepares to break bread with a president who was once a fixture of that same social circle.
The spectre of awkward questions from lawyers for Epstein’s survivors, members of Congress, and journalists now looms over the visit. The US Representative Robert Garcia, who in November called on Mountbatten-Windsor to testify before Congress, described Andrew’s arrest as an “enormous step forward” and has questioned why the US Department of Justice has not shown the same urgency.
“It’s time for the United States to end this White House cover-up,” he said. “President Trump and his Epstein administration are not above the law.”
A Palace statement that Charles III’s “thoughts and sympathies have been, and remain with, the victims of any and all forms of abuse” may not satisfy those in Washington, who believe the King should now publicly urge his younger brother to assist US authorities. With the Clintons having agreed to submit their testimonies to the House Oversight Committee, the questions about why Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor isn’t doing the same are likely to increase. Yet the mere suggestion that Charles publicly press Mountbatten-Windsor to testify places him in a perilous position, raising difficult questions about the boundaries between family, accountability, and protecting the Crown.
In Washington, there is little of the reflexive deference that surrounds the monarchy at home. American political reporters – and British correspondents in the US – operate at a greater remove; here, an unanswered question could prove a provocation that invites a louder, more public demand for the truth.
And this isn’t the only problem on the horizon for Charles. Not only will Charles be arriving as Trump doubts the Special Relationship under Sir Keir’s stewardship, for many, the visit will be nothing but a show of political appeasement of a controversial administration that is leaning more towards authoritarian instincts every day.
Steve Schmidt, a former Republican political strategist and founder of the anti-Trump political action committee The Lincoln Project, is among those leading a growing chorus demanding the King stay home. Otherwise, Schmidt says, the result will be “brutal” humiliation – something he promises to personally guarantee.
This year – America’s 250th birthday – was supposed to be a moment of national reflection and celebration of democracy. Instead, it has become a flashpoint. In the wake of questions around the legality of the war that Trunp has launched on Iran, the ICE killings of innocent American citizens and growing tensions domestically and internationally, for Schmidt and many others, this is an administration that is betraying the very values the 250th anniversary of American independence is meant to celebrate.
And he sees the spectre of Jeffrey Epstein hanging over the royal visit, adding to this toxic picture. With emboldened victim advocacy groups and lawmakers now calling for the former prince to testify before a US truth commission, Schmidt says the juxtaposition is jarring: while one brother faces police questioning over his ties to a paedophile ring, the other is set to be feted at a White House where the host’s own past associations with Epstein are well known.
“Look at what has transpired since then,” Schmidt tells The Independent. “An American president has threatened to wage war on Nato, to take by force territory of the kingdom of Denmark, and has unsettled profoundly the world order. America is facing a profound crisis in the 250th year of its independence.
“History here matters,” he says. “The first British sovereign to step foot on American soil was Charles’s grandfather, George VI. And when he did so in 1938, there was no special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States. It was a country filled with Irishmen who had no affection whatsoever for the British crown.
“Franklin Roosevelt curated every aspect of that visit, which included travelling up the Potomac River on the presidential yacht to Mount Vernon, where George VI entered the tomb of George Washington and paid his respects.”
“The greatest American invention, many of us believe, is the peaceful transfer of power, which continued uninterrupted from 1797 until 2020,” Schmidt says. “Donald Trump lost that election. His lies about it being stolen … have poured acid on the cornerstone of the country.”
Schmidt points to this history as a warning. Where Roosevelt used the monarchy to build an alliance against fascism, he argues that the current administration intends to use Charles as a propaganda tool.
“Trump, who was a close associate and friend of Epstein, is hanging banners of himself off the Justice Department,” Schmidt says, referring to the 40-foot Make America Safe Again sign containing a dark-hued portrait of Trump, which was unfurled recently and which critics said was reminiscent of authoritarian “leader-cult” propaganda. “There are men shooting American citizens in the back. Now is not the time for a British sovereign to come and serve as a propaganda tool for this,” Schmidt says.
And not only could the King be loudly lobbied by Epstein’s victims, but Schmidt also warns that if the King proceeds, the response from his own group will also be brutal and humiliating. The Lincoln Project built its brand on scathing, high-production-value ads targeting Trump during the 2020 election cycle, drawing widespread media attention and even fury from Trump himself. “They should call it the Loser’s Project,” he once said. He is now promising the same treatment to the King should he proceed with his trip in April.
No longer with the Lincoln Project, Schmidt now helps run The Save America Movement, a nonprofit focused on “defending democracy and restoring common sense.” And he says: “If the King comes to America in April, he is coming in support of a man who is defiling American values by choice. And if he makes that decision, he will be greeted with an advertising campaign that will boggle the British imagination.”
Asked for specifics, Schmidt says: “You should imagine billboards in Times Square that have Charles and Camilla and Donald and Melania and Epstein and Ghislaine, right? Remember when Charles wanted to be a tampon for Camilla? It will be brutal. It will be humiliating,” he says, referring to the “Tampongate” scandal, in which a private, intimate 1989 phone call between then-Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, intercepted by an amateur radio enthusiast and leaked to the Daily Mirror, became a national embarrassment.
“We will also ask the question: what did the King know – and when did he know it – about his brother? We’ll play by the First Amendment; by American rules. The First Amendment is absolute, and it will be a public relations disaster that exceeds anything known by the Crown. Our goal is not to disrespect the British sovereign. Our goal is not to humiliate the King of England. But we will do so in defence of American liberty.”
While the American political media is often accused of being servile, Schmidt believes the truth will find its way through a “raging torrent” of British reporting. The stakes, he says, involve the very credibility of the Crown.
And lawmakers are ready to show their teeth, too. While Congress lacks the statutory power to compel a foreign citizen to testify, any formal subpoena would be triggered if Mountbatten-Windsor ever sets foot on US soil. And a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) could petition British courts to force a deposition on UK soil in any criminal investigation. If Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives (and/or Senate) in November, the current polite requests for interviews are likely to be replaced by a barrage of Oversight Committee subpoenas and televised hearings focused on the Epstein files.
Palace insiders will be strategising for all events in this hostile atmosphere, which is just as febrile in the UK. Charles also leaves for Washington at a time when grassroots campaigns are also loudly calling for a total boycott of US products and even a UK withdrawal from the 2026 World Cup.
This domestic pressure forces the King into an impossible choice if he goes through with his US visit: he must act as a diplomat tasked with protecting British business interests, yet risks being seen by many of his subjects – and many in the US – as an enabler of an administration they find repugnant.
To a younger generation accustomed to the advocacy of the California Sussexes, it might feel strange that the guest of the White House keeps his counsel bound by diplomatic royal neutrality and constitutional constraint.
Yet none of this will come as a surprise to a King who has spent a lifetime observing the highwire act of royal diplomacy. While the current climate may be uniquely hostile, Charles has a track record of making deft moves in the shadows of political chaos. Last year, after Trump’s high-profile clash with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, it was he who stepped into the breach, quietly inviting the Ukrainian leader to Sandringham a few days later. It was a masterclass in royal “soft power”, signalling British solidarity without a word of public rebuke to the White House.
Supporters argue that the King’s decisive moves to strip his brother of his remaining titles and privileges show a monarch willing to put the integrity of the institution above personal sentiment.
Charles is also banking on a side of America that Steve Schmidt’s billboards ignore: the vast, quiet contingent of American royalists; the same people who flew across the Atlantic for the Queen’s funeral and who still view the British sovereign as a rare symbol of stability. Perhaps for them, the pomp and circumstance of a royal visit is not a political endorsement but a welcome reprieve from the nightmare at home and abroad.
As the April date approaches, the question remains: will Charles be able to use that unique heritage to get Trump back onside and endear himself to a nation? Or will he find himself a pawn in a global crisis where the stakes are high and the endgame unknown. For the King’s advisers, who are currently strategising for every eventuality, the picture grows more complex by the day.
