Donald Trump has claimed King Charles agrees with him that Iran should never be allowed nuclear weapons.
\nTrump made the remarks at a White House state dinner on Tuesday in honour of the visiting Charles and Camilla, after the two men sat down to bilateral talks earlier that day.
\nAs head of state, the king is above party politics and remains neutral. Trump\u2019s comments are likely to cause some embarrassment to royal aides that the king\u2019s views \u2013 or, at least, what Trump claims his views to be \u2013 have been made public.
\nThe US president said in his speech at the white-tie event on Tuesday evening: \u201cWe\u2019re doing a little Middle East work right now \u2026 and we\u2019re doing very well. We have militarily defeated that particular opponent, and we\u2019re never going to let that opponent ever, Charles agrees with me even more than I do, we\u2019re never going to let that opponent have a nuclear weapon.
\n\u201cThey know that, and they\u2019ve known it right now, very powerfully.\u201d
\nTrump\u2019s descriptions of opinions held by people with whom he has spoken privately \u2013 frequently relayed in social media posts and public appearances \u2013 are often found to conflict with the views expressed by the people themselves.
\nIn the UK, the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, repeatedly called for the king\u2019s trip to the US to be cancelled before Charles left for his four-day state visit, which began on Monday. Davey told the Commons earlier this month: \u201cPresident Trump is one of the most unpredictable people we have seen on the world stage and I hope he does not embarrass our monarch.\u201d
\nA Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: \u201cThe king is naturally mindful of his government\u2019s longstanding and well-known position on the prevention of nuclear proliferation.\u201d
\nAfter the bilateral meeting, when questioned by press as he left, Trump said: \u201cIt was a really good meeting. He\u2019s a fantastic person. They\u2019re incredible people and it\u2019s a real honour.\u201d
\nIn his state dinner speech Charles appeared to suggest to the president the purpose of his state visit was to \u201cput the \u2018special\u2019 back into our relationship\u201d \u2013 just as Queen Elizabeth II did almost 70 years ago. Charles spoke about the ties between Britain and the US, and implied it mirrored events in the aftermath of the 1956 Suez crisis, when Elizabeth toured the US to help repair relations.
\nBritain was left humiliated when the US refused to support its campaign with France and Israel to regain control of the Suez canal from Egypt, and the brief conflict marked the end of the UK\u2019s role as a global military power.
\nCharles told the dinner guests, who included the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, and the golfer Rory McIlroy: \u201cAnd yes, we have had our moments of difficulty, even in more recent history. When my mother visited in 1957, not the least of her tasks was to help put the \u2018special\u2019 back into our relationship after a crisis in the Middle East.\u201d
\nSome of the guests laughed when the king said: \u201cNearly 70 years on, it is hard to imagine anything like that happening today \u2026\u201d
\nCharles\u2019s most diplomatically sensitive state visit to date comes amid a backdrop of criticism levelled by Trump at Keir Starmer over the war in Iran.
\nRelations between the two men have been fractious, with the president calling the UK\u2019s approach to the Iran war \u201cterrible\u201d and repeatedly lashing out at Starmer \u2013 at one point describing him as \u201cno Winston Churchill\u201d.
\nA ceremonial welcome was staged for Charles and Camilla on the White House\u2019s south lawn on Tuesday, and Trump praised the \u201cspecial relationship\u201d between the US and the UK, telling the king: \u201cwe hope it will always remain that way\u201d and declaring: \u201cAmericans have had no closer friends than the British.\u201d
\nLater that day the king made a historic address to Congress on Capitol Hill \u2013 only the second British monarch to do so after Elizabeth II in 1991.
\nIn his speech, Charles made no direct mention of the Iran war, but referred to the key role of Nato, and highlighted the importance of continued support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, and the dangers of isolationism.
\nOn Wednesday, Charles and Camilla will mark the upcoming 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York, by laying flowers at one of the memorial pools.
\n#KingCharles #DonaldTrump #IranNuclearDeal #USUKRelations #StateVisit #RoyalFamily #NuclearWeapons #MiddleEast #Diplomacy #WhiteHouse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Donald Trump has claimed King Charles agrees with him that Iran should never be allowed nuclear weapons. Trump made the remarks at a White House state dinner on Tuesday in honour of the visiting Charles and Camilla, after the two men sat down to bilateral talks earlier that day. As head of state, the king […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iran-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}