A Royal visit full of pomp and ceremony signified little

The King and Queen’s visit to the US was a diplomatic masterpiece. The personal chemistry seemed good. The gifts were well judged. The president behaved – more or less. The King’s speeches were brilliantly crafted, and the King showed off the merits of irony, humour and self-deprecation, none of them in oversupply in the current administration. His speechwriters can take a bow.

More substantively, the King delivered for the Scotch whisky industry as President Trump removed the tariff on sales – but the “tech partnership”, the big reveal of the last state visit, has been put on ice by the Americans as a result of Keir Starmer’s lack of support over Iran. US trade policy remains as subject of Trump’s whims and tantrums as ever.

But, for the rest, events that coincided with the visit showed how little impact even the UK’s own trump card could have on President Trump – and was a salutary lesson for Keir Starmer, Yvette Cooper and Jonathan Powell on the limits of UK influence.

The King’s paean to NATO and alliances has been overshadowed by US troop cuts in Germany

King Charles waxed lyrical about the value of NATO and the importance of alliances.  Those words seem to have washed over President Trump. Within hours of Charles leaving the US, the President announced that he was planning to pull 5,000 (of 36,000) US troops out of Germany as he returned to his spat with Germany’s chancellor, who had blurted out that the US had been humiliated by Iran. There are reports that that figure might go even higher. US commitment to NATO and the defence of Europe looks no stronger after the state visit than it did before, however good a reception the King received.

Not did Charles have any success, assuming he tried, in changing Trump’s mind on the British government’s position on Iran. Indeed, Trump surprised absolutely no one by breaking protocol by saying King Charles agreed with him that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon (also the position of HMG as “royal sources” pointed out”) but also by suggesting that if the King had not been constrained by a pesky PM, he would have swung the UK behind the initial US offensive attacks. That would definitely not be something the King should have said, nor is it at all likely that he would have said it. Instead, this looks like the President convincing himself that his new best buddy is fully behind him, not the government and nation whom he was representing.

The big constitutional news was on the Voting Rights Act

The King also reminded a president keen on the unitary theory of government in the US, that checks and balances were important. But at much the same time as the King was receiving repeated ovations in Congress for his praise of constitutionalism, the Conservative majority on the Supreme Court was changing the interpretation of the Voting Rights Act opening the way for dilution of minority votes in the run-up to the mid-term elections. That is seen as being potentially worth up to 20 seats for the Republicans – making it harder for the Democrats to regain the House of Representatives in November and rein Trump in in his last two years in office.

The visit exposed the UK’s weakness in dealing with the current administration

Within 16 months of Trump taking office, the UK has deployed an “unprecedented” second state visit by Trump to the UK and sent the King to pour balm on a tattered relationship. There is not much left in the armoury for the next two and a half years to persuade the US of our specialness (something which even our current ambassador regards as no longer applying). The Prince and Princess of Wales look as though they are being lined up as the next royal visitors, and Trump’s desire for the Open to be played on one of his courses in Scotland may yet have a bit of potential to gain favour for a week. Maybe there could be an even more unprecedented third or fourth state visit.

But while this royal trip reminded American politicians that the UK can still be relied on for a good show, it also exposed how little real pressure we can exert on the US administration.