King Charles III arrived in Washington with one job no British diplomat can do: be the king.
The king’s four-day East Coast tour, with stops in Washington, Virginia and New York, comes at a moment of unusual turbulence between two nations long accustomed to calling each other indispensable allies. President Donald Trump’s approach to foreign policy has strained the so-called “special relationship,” testing whether the British monarchy can deploy its singular brand of soft power to smooth what diplomats and allies have privately struggled to manage.
The pressure will sharpen Tuesday, when Charles addresses a joint session of Congress, making him only the second British monarch to do so after Queen Elizabeth II spoke there in 1991 following the Gulf War. At that time, the United States and United Kingdom were largely aligned, and the queen thanked American troops for their role fighting alongside British forces
Things have changed.
“This is a much more difficult and a much more tense moment for Charles,” said Arianne Chernock, a Boston University history professor and expert on the monarchy. “He’s really going to try to adopt the long view as much as he can.”
Trump has repeatedly and personally attacked U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer for his failure to support the U.S.-led war with Iran and flirted with withdrawing from NATO, which risks undercutting British national security. The task before Charles is to somehow speak to the bilateral alliance without wading into the politics fracturing it.
“He’s going to carefully avoid speaking to the challenges of the moment,” said Ed Owens, a royal historian and author of “After Elizabeth: Can the Monarchy Save Itself?” The visit, he said, will be “presented as much bigger than the political challenges of today.”
But those challenges will be impossible to ignore.
Managing the special relationship
In the early days of Trump’s second term, Starmer emerged as one of the president’s more skilled interlocutors on the global stage. In February 2025, Starmer hand-delivered a letter from Charles to Trump with an invitation for a state visit to Britain. In May, he secured an early win in Trump’s trade war by landing an agreement to reduce tariffs on U.K. goods. And behind the scenes, he has worked to convince Trump to continue supporting Ukraine against the Russian invasion, to remain committed to NATO’s security and to dissuade him from his efforts to seize Greenland.
But Trump has grown more combative toward NATO allies since his war with Iran began, scolding them for their unwillingness to get directly involved in combat. The president has not explicitly renewed his calls to withdraw from the post-World War II alliance, but he has taken to calling it a “paper tiger” — language that implies Europe’s dependence on U.S. military power and suggests Washington could go it alone.
“Everyone seems to have acknowledged that keeping NATO together will imply managing a more transactional and less predictable U.S.,” said a foreign diplomat, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about transatlantic relations. European allies “don’t really have other options than hedging, but they still want to do so in a way that doesn’t precipitate a U.S. withdrawal from Europe.”
Starmer has threaded a careful line: He has allowed U.S. forces to use British bases for defensive operations and led a multinational effort to develop strategies for reopening the Strait of Hormuz while keeping Britain’s role focused on diplomatic and economic levers rather than military channels.
The ‘Epstein elephant’
But managing the bilateral relationship is only part of what Charles must navigate this week. Some of the thorniest complications are closer to home.
Hanging over the visit is an issue the palace has been eager to sidestep: the fallout from last year’s release of files from the investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The files prompted the king to strip his younger brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, of his royal title and official duties after email exchanges revealed the two men had remained in closer contact than previously acknowledged. Mountbatten-Windsor is currently under criminal investigation in London on allegations that he shared confidential information with Epstein while serving as a trade envoy — allegations he has denied.
The files also ensnared Peter Mandelson, Starmer’s appointee as U.S. ambassador, who lost his post over his Epstein ties. Last week, Trump publicly called Mandelson a “really bad pick,” though he added that Starmer had “plenty of time to recover.”
The episode has fueled pressure from some within Starmer’s party for the prime minister to resign.
Starmer “bent over backwards to do everything possible to get along with Trump,” including appointing the now-disgraced former ambassador, who was viewed as an effective political operator to meet the demands of working with Trump, said Albert Wolf, a global fellow at Habib University. “He’s now suffering tremendously from it as a result.”
Recommended
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who co-authored the legislation to release the Epstein files, publicly requested that Charles meet with survivors of Epstein’s abuse during his Capitol Hill visit, but the king declined. Khanna plans to host the family members of Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most well-known victims, who accused Mountbatten-Windsor of abusing her at age 17, an allegation he has denied. Giuffre died by suicide last year; a vigil was held in Washington over the weekend on the anniversary of her death.
The palace’s refusal to meet with survivors has drawn particular notice given Queen Camilla’s high-profile philanthropy on behalf of victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Owens said the palace has signaled it is “not interested in talking to [Epstein’s] victims right at this moment,” in part because of the ongoing criminal investigation, while also making clear that “their thoughts are very much with the victims of Epstein’s abuse.”
“There’s a big elephant in the room that’s going to be following the king, which is the Epstein elephant,” Owens said.
A king at a crossroads
Trump’s personal regard for the monarchy may give Charles unusual leverage. The president has spoken warmly about the royal family for years, frequently noting that his mother was a devoted admirer of Elizabeth. Last week, Trump called Charles “a friend of mine” and “a fantastic man,” and he told the BBC that the visit “absolutely” has the power to improve bilateral relations.
“We’re gonna have a great time,” he said.
“Trump really respects Charles and thinks very positively towards the monarchy,” Chernock said. “In some ways, this could be career-defining” for Charles.
At age 77 and nearly four years into his reign, Charles has arrived at a consequential moment — not just for Britain, but for his own legacy. He has battled cancer since 2024 and navigated the public estrangement of his younger son Prince Harry, who relocated to the U.S. in 2019 with his wife, Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, and has continued to distance himself from the family. Trump recently took a swipe at Harry after the prince called on the U.S. to do more to end the war in Ukraine.
“Prince Harry is not speaking for the U.K., that’s for sure,” Trump said. “I think I’m speaking for the U.K. more than Prince Harry.”
Where the king has found his footing, according to those who have watched the monarchy closely, is on the international stage. He has acknowledged the controversies of Britain’s imperial past, championed Ukraine’s sovereignty and navigated the ceremonial-yet-substantive role of statesman-without-portfolio.
It is a role that could matter more now than at any other point in his reign.
“Given how geopolitics are changing,” Owens said, “this is the biggest moment” for the king as a statesman.
Laurel Rapp, a former State Department diplomat who now leads the North America program at the London-based think tank Chatham House, said the visit is an “all-of-government effort,” but she cautioned that deep policy breakthroughs are unlikely — and that with the Trump administration, even careful planning has limits.
“You never know with this White House, in particular, just how much they’ll stick to the script,” she said.
Akayla Gardner is a White House correspondent for MS NOW.