The King’s state visit to the US in April should be cancelled after Donald Trump’s string of disparaging remarks about Britain, including comments about the cowardice of UK soldiers, Peter Hitchens has argued.
Speaking on the latest Alas Vine & Hitchens podcast, the longstanding Mail on Sunday columnist said it was ‘absurd and pathetic’ that King Charles was being asked to ‘endure’ the US President next month.
Back in January, days after clashing with Nato allies over his bid to take control of Greenland, Mr Trump told Fox News he was ‘not sure’ the military alliance of Western countries would be there for America ‘if we ever needed them’.
In what was taken as a cheap shot at his country’s closest friends, he claimed: ‘We’ve never needed them… we have never really asked anything of them.
‘They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan. And they did – they stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines.’
The President’s comments triggered outrage, with veterans groups and politicians across the ideological spectrum reprimanding Mr Trump. In total 457 British armed forces personnel died while serving in Afghanistan between 2001 and the end of operations in 2021, 405 of whom were killed as a result of hostile action.
Al Carns, the Armed Forces minister and a former commando who served five tours in Afghanistan, said Britain had fought ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with US troops after America asked Nato allies to come to its aid following the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
‘It’s complete nonsense,’ Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said. ‘I spoke to parents of young men who have lost their lives. It is a disgrace to denigrate their memory like that.
‘There is too much careless talk from President Trump. He clearly doesn’t know the history of what happened. We mustn’t have these sorts of throwaway remarks.’
While the outrage over Mr Trump’s remarks has been overshadowed by the war in Iran, Mr Hitchens – who has family members who served in Afghanistan – believes his slight against British troops should not be forgotten so easily.
‘The extraordinary decision to send His Majesty the King to endure the company of President Donald Trump in the White House in April for reasons which, I have to say, totally escaped me,’ he said on the latest Alas Vine & Hitchens podcast.
‘The president the United States has spent so much of the past few days publicly and deliberately insulting this country, and has gone so far as to insult members of our armed forces for supposed cowardice in Afghanistan, where close members of my family, I have to say, served in grave proximity to danger.
‘And I find it quite absurd and rather pathetic that we, supposedly a major country with a long and proud history, should be dispatching His Majesty to endure, as I say, the company of this oaf.’
Mr Trump is widely seen by other world leaders as deeply ‘transactional’ and Mr Hitchens claimed that withdrawing the state visit might ultimately work in the UK’s favour.
‘I really don’t see why we should do it. On the contrary, it would be an important gesture, which might actually get through to him, as veritable seems to do if we said, so sorry, Mr. President, but we don’t really think this is the time, nor do we think you’re the person,’ Mr Hitchens said.
‘You’ve had enough. You’ve had enough hobnobbing with our royal family as it is, and you’ve had your lot because you’ve shown no gratitude and no politeness, the extreme discourtesy of it is, I suppose, what annoys me most.
‘I have other complaints about Donald Trump, but the way in which he has just been so deliberately, specifically rude to this country and its people suggests to me that he just doesn’t deserve this. And what good would it do us? None.’
Mr Trump did backtrack on his claim that British troops had dodged the front line in Afghanistan – reportedly after King Charles intervened with his ‘concerns’.
‘It was made very clear that the King’s concern over the hurt had been caused by the comments whether inadvertent or not,’ a royal source said.
Trump has often spoken fondly about the Royal Family and during his state visit last year described King Charles as ‘my friend’.
Whatever the reasons, the US President took to his Truth Social platform to perform what appeared to be an about-turn.
‘The GREAT and very BRAVE soldiers of the United Kingdom will always be with the United States of America!’ he wrote.
‘In Afghanistan, 457 died, many were badly injured, and they were among the greatest of all warriors.
‘It’s a bond too strong to ever be broken. The U.K. Military, with tremendous Heart and Soul, is second to none (except for the U.S.A.!). We love you all, and always will! President DONALD J. TRUMP.’
However, Mr Trump’s insults towards Britain recently began again in earnest after the PM refused the US permission to use UK bases to launch offensive strikes in Iran – eventually agreeing to allow defensive operations.
Speaking in the White House, the US President hit out at Sir Keir’s initial decision to block the US using British bases to launch attacks on Tehran.
In an apparent reference to Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands, Mr Trump said: ‘That island… It’s taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land there.
‘It would have been much more convenient landing there as opposed to flying many extra hours, so we are very surprised.’
Referring to Britain’s war-time PM, a bust of whom sits in the Oval Office, Mr Trump added: ‘This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.’
Mr Hitchens also raised the possibility that for Mr Trump the state visit might give him a bump in the midterm polls, which many Republicans are fearful about due to the shadow of Iran and rising oil prices being passed on to the consumer.
‘What good will it do him? I would imagine it might help him lose the midterm elections less badly than he otherwise would,’ Mr Hitchens said.
‘I think he would make a great deal of the visit from that point of view, to try and give himself a respectability, glamor and prestige, which he personally lacks.’
Mr Hitchens is far from alone in his views. There have been calls from senior Government officials to postpone or even scrap Mr Trump’s upcoming state visit until the Iran war is over and tensions between him and Keir Starmer have subsided.
Charles and Camilla are due to fly to Washington at the end of next month for a three-day visit to coincide with America’s 250th anniversary celebrations.
But a Whitehall source involved with the planning of the trip said there had been a last-minute ‘wobble’ about signing off the plans.
Since the plans were first drawn up, in the wake of Trump’s state visit to Britain last September, the President has included Britain in new trade tariffs, criticised it for giving up the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and claimed that British troops avoided the frontline in Afghanistan.
To hear Peter Hitchens and Sarah Vine debate the King’s US visit in full, search for Alas Vine and Hitchens wherever you get your podcasts.
