‘Tiara diplomacy’: Trump visits the Royal Family amid a tense international climate

Royal commentator Bonnie Brownlee explains the reasons behind the pomp and pageantry of Trump’s state visit.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s state visit with King Charles III and Queen Camilla is primed for pageantry, pomp and circumstance, in what one royal commentator says is a strategic gesture amid a tense political climate.

Trump was greeted by the royal couple and the Prince and Princess of Wales at Windsor Castle early Wednesday morning, set against the backdrop of a global trade war that has upended diplomatic ties with America’s adversaries and closest allies alike.

But the Royal Family, notes commentator Bonnie Brownlee, knows a key opportunity to bond with the president: his fondness for the finer things.

“The Royal Family know how to do this well,” she said in a Wednesday interview with CTV Your Morning. “A lot of historians and writers in the U.K. are referring to it as the ‘tiara diplomacy’ for this trip, with Trump.”

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Beyond the typical spectacle of a visit with the royals, complete with bagpipe bands and marching processions, Brownlee says that geopolitics will take centre stage -- what she calls a “wooing, a little bit, of the president of the United States.”

Commonwealth nations like the United Kingdom and Canada have felt the sting of Trump’s sweeping and ever-changing slate of import tariffs in the months since he took office, and as U.S. trade partners stare down the years still to come in the president’s second term, Brownlee describes investing in diplomacy as a necessity, not an option.

“This is about keeping a good, solid relationship with the Americans, and with this president, who has three more years in power,” she told CTV Your Morning.

“None of us can fool around too much with the president of the United States; we have to have a relationship with him.”

A mixed reception

Not all of the king’s subjects have shared his approach to the presidential reunion.

In the lead-up to Trump’s arrival, demonstrators near Windsor Castle unfurled an enormous poster depicting Trump posing with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in an apparent reminder of their past social connections. An image of the two was also projected on a tower at the castle from a distance, reportedly leading to multiple arrests.

The president has claimed that his friendship with the disgraced financier, who died in 2019, ended decades ago.

Trump’s previous trips to the U.K. have also been met with protests, both during occasional visits to his own golf course in Scotland and for his 2018 audience with the late Queen Elizabeth II.

“There will be a lot of Brits that are just wondering ‘Why are we welcoming this man that’s had so many issues?’” Brownlee said.

She notes that the decision to hold the visit at the Royal Family’s home of nearly 1,000 years, rather than in densely populated downtown London, was deliberate — not least of all because it reduces the risks associated with protests by Trump’s detractors.

“It’s much easier to contain the visit here, on the grounds of Windsor Castle,” she said.

On the agenda for Wednesday is a lunch meeting with the royals, followed by a ceremonial wreath-laying at the grave of Queen Elizabeth, who famously preferred to host visiting public figures at the castle.

With files from The Associated Press