After the royal pomp, Trump’s state visit turns to politics and a meeting with Starmer– timesofindia.indiatimes.com

After the royal pomp, Trump’s state visit turns to politics and a meeting with Starmer– timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Source Link
Excerpt:

LONDON: After the pomp, it’s time for the politics. President Donald Trump will meet Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday, the final day of the U.S. leader’s state visit to Britain, with tech investment, steel tariffs and potentially tricky topics on the agenda. The president and first lady Melania Trump were feted by King Charles III and Queen Camilla on Wednesday at Windsor Castle with all the pageantry the monarchy can muster: gold-trimmed carriages, scarlet-clad soldiers, artillery salutes and a glittering banquet in a grand 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 U.S. leader, featuring the biggest military honor 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 want to celebrate the strength of the U.S-U.K. relationship, almost 250 years after its rocky start in 1776.

Trump will be welcomed by a ceremonial honor guard complete with bagpipers – a nod to the president’s Scottish heritage – and shown items from the archive of wartime leader Winston Churchill, who coined the term “special relationship” for the bond between the United States and Britain. 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 to coincide with the visit, Britain said U.S. companies had pledged 150 billion pounds ($204 billion) in investment in the United Kingdom, including 90 billion pounds ($122 billion) from investment firm Blackstone in the next decade. Investment will also flow the other way, including almost $30 billion by pharmaceutical firm GSK in the U.S.