After royal pomp, Trump’s state visit turns to politics, meeting with Starmer

After a whirlwind of ceremonial fanfare and red-carpet greetings, US President Donald Trump now turns to the corridors of power, as his state visit to Britain culminates in a high-stakes meeting with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, where diplomacy, trade, and tense negotiations await.

On Wednesday, 17 September, King Charles III and Queen Camilla rolled out the regal red carpet for President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania at Windsor Castle, enveloping them in a dazzling display of royal pageantry: gilded carriages gleaming in the sunlight, soldiers resplendent in scarlet uniforms, thunderous artillery salutes echoing across the grounds, and a sumptuous banquet set within the glittering grandeur of a ceremonial hall.

British officials have festooned the trip with the kind of superlatives Trump revels in: It's an “unprecedented” second state visit for the US leader, featuring the biggest military honour guard ever assembled for such an occasion.

On Thursday, it is Starmer's turn to welcome the president to Chequers, a 16th-century manor house northwest of London that serves as a rural retreat for British leaders.

Trump’s British hosts aim to honor the enduring bond between the United States and the United Kingdom, a relationship nearly 250 years in the making since its tumultuous beginnings in 1776.

The president will be received by a ceremonial honour guard, their march accompanied by the soulful strains of bagpipes — a subtle tribute to his Scottish heritage — before being shown treasured artifacts from the archives of wartime leader Winston Churchill, the man who first christened the transatlantic alliance as the “special relationship.”

There's also a lunch of Dover sole followed by key lime pie, and a display by the Red Devils army parachute team.

Trans-Atlantic tech partnership

The two leaders are expected to sign a “tech prosperity deal” that UK officials say will bring thousands of jobs and billions in investment in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and nuclear energy.

It includes a UK arm of Stargate, a Trump-backed AI infrastructure project led by OpenAI, and a host of AI data centres around the UK American firms are announcing 31 billion pounds (USD 42 billion) investment in the UK's AI sector, including USD 30 billion from Microsoft for protects including Britain's largest supercomputer.

British officials say they have not agreed to scrap a digital services tax or water down internet regulation to get the deal, some details of which have yet to be announced.

The British government is learning that when it comes to deals with the US administration, the devil is in the detail. In May, Starmer and Trump struck a trade agreement that reduced US tariffs on Britain's key auto and aerospace industries.

But talks on slashing duties on steel and aluminum to zero from their current level of 25 per cent have stalled, despite a promise in May that the issue would be settled within weeks.

The British Chambers of Commerce said failure to cut the tariffs would “greeted with dismay” by the British steel industry.

Potentially awkward conversations

Starmer wants a successful state visit to balance weeks of bad news that saw him lose not just an ambassador but deputy prime minister Angela Rayner – who quit over a tax error on a home purchase – and a senior aide. Fourteen months after winning a landslide election victory, Starmer's government is struggling to kickstart Britains' sluggish economy and his Labour Party is lagging in the polls.

Leslie Vinjamuri, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, said the trip was likely to be “a difficult visit for the prime minister, much more so than for the US president.”

For Trump, “this plays well at home, it plays well abroad. It's almost entirely to President Trump's advantage to turn up to Britain and be celebrated by the British establishment,” she said.

Starmer will be bracing for awkward questions about Jeffrey Epstein when he and Trump hold a press conference at Chequers. Days before the state visit, Starmer fired Britain's ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, over the envoy's past friendship with the convicted sex offender.

Questions about Epstein overshadowed Trump's last visit to the UK in July, when he sat with Starmer at his golf club in Scotland. As they took questions from journalists, Trump was repeatedly peppered with queries about Epstein as his government faced pressure from back home to release government records into the criminal case of the now-disgraced financier, who authorities say killed himself in 2019.

Difficult discussions on Ukraine, Middle East

There are also potentially difficult conversations to be had over Ukraine and the Middle East.

Starmer has played a major part in European efforts to shore up US support for Ukraine.

Trump has expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin but has not made good on threats to impose new sanctions on Russia for shunning peace negotiations.

He has repeatedly pushed off a decision, suggesting more than once that action will come in a few weeks. As he left Washington for the UK on Tuesday, Trump appeared to put the onus on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying, “He's going to have to make a deal.”

Last week's Russian drone incursion into NATO member Poland drew strong condemnation from European NATO allies, and pledges of more planes and troops for the bloc's eastern flank. Trump played down the incident's severity, musing that it “could have been a mistake. ”

Starmer also departs from Trump over Israel's war in Gaza, and has said the UK will formally recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations later this month.

Trump has threatened to penalise Canada during trade negotiations for making a similar move.

With AP/PTI inputs