U.S. President Donald Trump is due to leave Windsor Castle, where he and his wife Melania received the royal treatment on Wednesday — as the U.S. leader’s historic state visit to the U.K. turns to more serious business matters.
On Thursday, Trump will be heading to Chequers, the official country residence of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, for trade and geopolitical talks with the British leader and delegations from the U.K. and U.S. Melania Trump is due to stay on at Windsor Castle this morning.
Trump will be greeted by Starmer and his wife Victoria, along with another ceremonial guard of honor and bagpipers, when he arrives at Chequers — a 16th-century manor house near London that prime ministers use as a rural retreat and more informal venue for international diplomacy.
Finalizing commitments laid out in the “economic prosperity deal” or U.S.-U.K. trade deal of May are expected to take center stage, as well as more thorny matters regarding 25% tariffs on British steel and aluminum that the U.K. wants reduced to zero. The ongoing wars in Ukraine and Middle East are also likely to feature on the agenda.
Speaking to reporters as he boarded Air Force One to travel to Britain on Tuesday, Trump said he was “into helping” the U.K. finesse the countries’ trade deal.
“They want to see if they can refine the trade deal a little bit,” he said “We’ve made a deal, and it’s a great deal, and I’m into helping them,” he said at the time. “They’d like to see if they could get a little bit better deal. So, we’ll talk to them.”
Key to the conversation, Starmer and Trump appear to truly get on.
While it’s uncertain how the Thursday talks will play out, there’s no doubt that the U.K. has pulled out the stops to impress its transatlantic ally.
At a glittering state banquet held at Windsor Castle on Wednesday night, Trump told a swathe of guests that included senior royals, top U.S. and British officials and business leaders, that being invited to Britain for an unprecedented second state visit was one of the “highest honors of my life.”
He then raised a few laughs when he joked that he hoped he’d be the only president to get two state visits.
