In one legislative chamber, a British king appealed to centuries of shared history in a bid to preserve his country’s most important alliance. In another, an ocean away, a British prime minister watched his agenda get sidelined again by his past efforts to protect the U.S.-U.K. “special relationship.”
The twin scenes, playing out in Washington’s House of Representatives and the House of Commons in London, illustrated how much managing ties with U.S. President Donald Trump’s United States has come to consume the British state. Despite Prime Minster Keir Starmer’s efforts to adapt his left-leaning Labour government to the billionaire Republican’s personality-driven foreign policy, he has watched ties sink to their lowest level in decades.
This week, Starmer deployed the best messenger he could muster to reach a president who is unusually comfortable associating himself with royalty: King Charles III. The 77-year-old monarch’s state visit to Washington — ostensibly to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence from Britain — gave Trump the opportunity to hold a military review and a fighter-jet flyover at the White House.
