This Royal Visit Is 'Much More Serious'

King Charles III is dropping into Washington to mark 250 years since Americans booted his ancestors—and to see if he can keep today's US-UK ties from unraveling under President Trump. The four-day trip beginning Monday—to include a rare speech to Congress, a state dinner, private talks with Trump, and stops in New York and Virginia—is seen in London as his most delicate assignment yet. "Usually these visits are a glorified patting on the back. This is much more serious," British historian Andrew Roberts tells the Wall Street Journal. "This is a much trickier royal trip than anything that his mother was asked to undertake ... in terms of visits to the US," adds David Charter, an expert on the US-UK "special relationship."

Behind the pageantry lies a long list of grievances: disputes over trade, Ukraine, Trump's threats against allies' "imperial possessions," and US military moves in Iran that London publicly blasts as illegal. Trump frequently lambasts Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Britain's climate policies, even as he gushes over Charles, whom he calls "a wonderful, wonderful person." UK officials are effectively sending the king in as a last-ditch moderator, hoping his status as one of the few remaining "Trump whisperers" in Europe can steady a relationship widely viewed as being at its weakest point in decades, per the Journal.

Trump, himself, has admitted the state of the relationship is "not good at all," per CNN, though he says he and the king, arriving with Queen Camilla under much pomp and glamor, are "going to have a great time" this week. There had been talk that the visit might be canceled, particularly after an attempted attack at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, but US officials made it clear to Downing Street that Trump would be most displeased in such a case, the Journal reports. Experts say Charles will look to ease tensions in his private conversations with Trump. His address to Congress, however, is expected to speak to the American people following the royal scandal involving the arrest of the former Prince Andrew.