Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla began wrapping up their four-day state visit to the U.S. with a very quick stop at the White House to bid farewell to U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, having already charmed him at a formal dinner two days prior.
The royal visit officially marked the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence from British rule, with King Charles III making light-hearted remarks about Britain being on the losing side of the American Revolutionary War.
It was also intended to mend what King Charles described at Tuesday’s state dinner with Donald Trump as an “unbreakable bond” and “indispensable alliance” between the two countries.
The relationship has recently been strained after the UK, along with other European allies, declined to join the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran.
It appeared to have worked, with Donald Trump expressing strong approval of King Charles the day after their dinner.
Despite tensions with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, he described Charles as a “great friend” and suggested that liking the monarch could positively influence relations with the prime minister.
Posing for photographs on a red carpet outside the White House's South Portico on Thursday morning, Trump, frequently denounced by political opponents as a would-be king, pointed to the monarch and said: "He's the greatest King, in my book."
The two men, joined by Camilla and U.S. first lady Melania Trump, went inside, came back out five minutes later, and the royals got in their car to tour several sites in Virginia.
"Great people," Trump, who ran on an anti-immigration platform, said toward the departing motorcade. "We need more people like that in our country."
The royal trip has seen Charles draw smiles from lawmakers in the U.S. Congress to young Harlem school children at an urban farm in New York City.
Among the biggest smiles of all came from Trump himself, as Charles revealed a gift for the President at Tuesday's White House reception: the original bell that hung from the conning tower of a Royal Navy submarine launched from a UK shipyard in 1944 and named HMS Trump.
For his final day, Charles is expected to lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River in Virginia, a sacred site for many Americans where tens of thousands of the country's war dead are buried.
On Wednesday the King and Queen commemorated victims of the 11 September, 2001, al Qaeda attack on New York City, laying a floral bouquet at the memorial where the World Trade Centre's twin towers once stood.
The royal couple are also expected to attend a small-town block party in Virginia to join in what the British embassy called the apparently exotic "North American tradition" of "a 'potluck' meal."
Later in the day, the royal couple will fly to Bermuda for King Charles' first visit as sovereign to the British territory.
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