President Donald Trump met 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 talks over Ukraine and Gaza 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.
After bidding goodbye to the king and queen at Windsor — Trump called the monarch “a great gentleman, and a great king” — Trump flew by helicopter some 20 miles (32 kilometers) to Chequers, the prime minister’s official country retreat. He was welcomed on the doorstep of the house by the prime minister and his wife, Victoria Starmer.
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 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.
