After charming Trump, King Charles gets Appalachian welcome then heads to Bermuda

Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla wrapped up their four-day state visit to the U.S. on Thursday with a quick stop by the White House to bid farewell to President Donald Trump, having already charmed him at a formal dinner two days prior.

After barely six minutes indoors, Charles, always fond of the countryside, and Camilla departed to spend their final hours in small-town America and Appalachian wilderness: marching bands, Little League baseball, bluegrass music, sheep farmers and the bird-filled Blue Ridge Mountains.

The official reason for the royal U.S. trip was to mark the 250th anniversary of the U.S. winning its independence from monarchy and British colonial rule under Charles' forebear George III.

But it was also designed to mend what Charles called an "indispensable alliance" between the two countries, lately strained by the UK, alongside other European allies, declining to join the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, infuriating Trump.

The trip seemed to work as intended. As enraged as he has been by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Trump told reporters at some length how fond he was of his "great friend" Charles after Tuesday's state dinner: "When you like the king of a country so much, it probably helps your relationship with the prime minister."

With one relationship tended to, Charles flew from the U.S. to Bermuda on Thursday for three days, his first visit as sovereign to the British territory that, unlike the U.S., has not obtained independence.

The centerpiece of the U.S. trip came on Tuesday, when Charles addressed a joint meeting of Congress followed by the White House state dinner. The king emphasized the historical military and cultural ties between the two nations, the need for U.S. support for Ukraine in its war with Russia and the importance of the NATO military alliance, which Trump has threatened to upend.

'THE GREATEST KING'

Posing for photographs outside the White House on Thursday, Trump, who sometimes revels in his political opponents denouncing him as a would-be king, pointed to the monarch and said: "He's the greatest king, in my book." The two men, joined by Camilla and U.S. first lady Melania Trump, went inside, came back out six minutes later, and the royals got in their car to tour several sites in Virginia.

"Great people," Trump, who ran on an anti-immigration platform, said toward the departing motorcade, giving it a wave and a thumbs up. "We need more people like that in our country."

Earlier in the week, Trump's staff released a photograph of Charles and Trump with the briefest of captions: "TWO KINGS" followed by a crown emoji.

On his trip to stoke transatlantic goodwill, Charles drew smiles from lawmakers in the U.S. Congress to young Harlem school children at an urban farm in New York City. Among the biggest smiles of all came from Trump himself, as Charles revealed a gift for the president at Tuesday's White House reception: the original bell that hung from the conning tower of a Royal Navy submarine launched from a UK shipyard in 1944 and named HMS Trump.

"And should you ever need to get hold of us," Charles said as Trump viewed his new bell with evident delight, "well, just give us a ring."

CHARLES VIEWS A POTLUCK

Before heading to a street party in the small Virginia town of Front Royal on Thursday, Charles crossed the Potomac River to pause at Arlington National Cemetery, a venerated site where tens of thousands of the country's war dead are buried. A 21-gun salute greeted him before he laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

In the streets of Front Royal, home to about 15,000 people, tiny American and British flags were distributed before the arrival of who locals agreed was the most famous person the town has welcomed since 1950, when the singer and actor Bing Crosby made a visit.

Tables were laden with apple-butter donuts, pulled pork, crab tots, jerk chicken wings, burgers and Girl Scouts' cookies in what Buckingham Palace explained in an advisory was the apparently exotic "North American tradition" of "a 'potluck' meal." Charles and Camilla looked at the food with curiosity, but did not eat it.

"I wish that I was on old Rocky Top, down in the Tennessee hills," sang a bluegrass band in a paean to simple mountain life as Charles and Camilla stopped to listen. "Ain't no smoggy smoke on Rocky Top, ain't no telephone bills."

The royal couple spent about 40 minutes at the party before continuing their tour, with Charles heading to the mountains of Shenandoah National Park, where a bald eagle, the U.S. national bird, awaited him on a park ranger's arm at his tour's final stop.

Reuters

 

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