Donald Trump’s second state visit to the UK: the pageantry, politics and pitfalls

Donald Trump’s second state visit to the UK provides an opportunity to compare and contrast the visit he made six years ago, while Elizabeth II was on the throne.

Although it’s unprecedented for a head of state to visit twice, Trump’s second visit, from September 16 to 18, is consistent with royal protocol. This dictates that a head of state can make one visit to the UK per monarch, so given that Charles III is now the UK’s head of state, the protocol allows for Trump to make a second visit.

Much has changed in the world and in the US president’s approach in the years since Trump’s first visit. From a British perspective the aim will be to gloss over the differences between the two leaders and stress continuity in UK-US relations.

This means underlining the historic relationship between the UK and the US, their common heritage, cultural and political traditions, and their shared values and international outlook. State visits are a pictorial narrative of symbolic connectivity, both cultural and political, a visible link to past visits and relationships.

To achieve this, the Trumps will visit St George’s Chapel at Windsor, inspect the guard of honour and be taken on a tour of the Royal collection in Green Drawing Room of Windsor Castle, where they will be shown objects which relate to British and American shared history.

A joint flypast of British and American air force F-35 aircraft will symbolise both industrial and military collaboration as the embodiment of the “special relationship”. As with last time, the programme has been choreographed to keep Trump a safe distance from protesters and politics.

This – as last time – will be the “heritage and high life” version of Britain. This visit represents a high point in Trump’s journey from the outer boroughs of New York to the heart of what he regards as elite society.

Symbolically, it seems to complete his mother’s journey, after fleeing poverty in Scotland in the 1930s, for her son to now be hosted and feted by the British monarch. Trump’s love of the royal family is well documented; their global fame, celebrity and high regard are aspects of performative public life that he aspires to emulate.

Potential pitfalls

Trump’s visit comes as the UK grapples with a number of issues in which the US has a significant interest. First is the removal of Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the US.

Mandelson is known to have developed a friendly relationship with the US president, so the subject of his dismissal and its circumstances – over a friendship with Jeffrey Epstein – may be at the front of Trump’s mind as his opponents at home press to discover more about the nature of his own relationship with the disgraced financier.

Another issue is the UK government’s pledge to recognise Palestinian statehood alongside other G7 allies such as France and Canada.

The official US position, repeated recently by the American ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, is that recognition of the state of Palestine would be “disastrous” and “rewards Hamas’s monstrous terrorism”. And you’d imagine the UK government will be keen for Trump to avoid references to recent anti-immigration marches.

For Keir Starmer, the UK’s prime minister, the hope must be that Trump and his team will be on their best behaviour during the visit for fear of spoiling the celebratory mood. Perhaps repeatedly stressing the “special relationship” will help insulate the UK from Trumpian criticism.

The real test of this will be after all the royal pageantry of honour guards, flypasts and state banquets, when Trump is due to meet Starmer at Chequers on September 18. Starmer will want the narrative to focus on a new “landmark” deal on building nuclear reactors between the two countries. He will be hoping to negotiate a more favourable tariff regime on UK steel exports.

It’s unlikely, though, that Mandelson’s sacking and Palestinian statehood will not be raised. The potential for the US president to air his views in public is one which must be worrying the UK prime minister and his advisers.

The US president has demonstrated his tendency to try to dominate every news cycle by provocative acts and statements – what’s known as “flooding the zone”. On his first state visit to the UK, he preceded the trip with an interview in The Sun newspaper, in which he intervened in the leadership contest underway in the Conservative party.

He endorsed Boris Johnson, saying he would make an excellent new premier. On Trump’s arrival he immediately engaged in a Twitter exchange with London Major Sadiq Khan, who had opposed his visit, calling him “a stone cold loser”.

A very different president

In his first term of office, Trump’s presidency was largely managed by the so-called “adults in the room”. He was surrounded by establishment advisers who protected the novice president and the wider world from some of his more erratic impulses and wilder instincts.

His second term, however, represents a very different version of Trump in power. Surrounded by loyalists and enablers, Trump has set about dismantling the traditional idea of what American power represents, at home and abroad. From the domestic turmoil as his policies repeatedly challenge US constitutional norms to his erratic and often dangerous trade and foreign policies, the contrast is striking.

Part of the way in which this manifests in foreign policy is a willingness to leverage American power to advance US national interests, apparently without concessions to America’s allies. Trump’s willingness to demand support for the fossil fuel industry, to press for a tougher approach to China, and his championing of an absolutist approach to free speech are all features of this second-term strategy – and may well be on the agenda when he meets Starmer.

With a US president who appears willing to change his foreign policy approach based on how he may feel on any given day, it’s a visit fraught with potential pitfalls.

David Hastings Dunn has previously received funding from the ESRC, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Open Democracy Foundation and has previously been both a NATO and a Fulbright Fellow.