Days before King Charles’s state visit, Trump says it could help mend ties with London
The US president, who has known the British monarch for years, described him as a brave man and predicted that the visit would be a positive.
US President Donald Trump said the state visit of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, which begins on Monday, could help repair relations with the United Kingdom, strained by weeks of tension over the Iran war and other bilateral disputes. The remarks came in a telephone interview with the BBC broadcast on Thursday.
Absolutely. He’s fantastic. He’s a fantastic man. Absolutely the answer is yes, Trump said when asked whether the visit could help repair the relationship. The US president, who has known the British monarch for years, described him as a brave man and predicted that the visit would be a positive.
The royal couple will travel from April 27 to 30 on a tour that will include Washington, New York, Virginia, and Bermuda. In the US capital, the King will hold a private meeting with Trump at the White House and deliver an address to Congress. It will be the first state visit by a British monarch to the United States since 2007, when Queen Elizabeth II was received by President George W. Bush, and forms part of the celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of US independence.
The visit comes at a delicate moment for the special relationship between Washington and London. Trump has repeatedly criticised British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for declining to join the US military offensive against Iran, and recently described former ambassador Peter Mandelson — removed from his post in September 2025 following revelations about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein and arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office — as a really bad pick. In the interview, Trump linked Starmer’s political recovery to a shift in two areas: expanded oil and gas extraction in the North Sea and a tougher approach to immigration. If he doesn’t, I don’t think he has a chance, he said.
Starmer responded on Thursday to the US president’s remarks, saying he takes his decisions based on what’s in the British national interest and not what other people say or do. He reiterated his position of keeping the United Kingdom out of the Middle East conflict: I’m not going to be diverted or deflected from that by what anybody else says.
In the same interview, Trump also addressed the level of support received from European allies, stating: I didn’t need them at all but they should’ve been there. Toward the end of the conversation, the president referenced the multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit he is pursuing against the BBC over the editing of a Panorama documentary covering the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, warning that the broadcaster has to be very careful. The BBC has rejected his compensation demands and has formally filed to dismiss the case.
