King Charles and Trump will meet this week. Much is at stake
Idea
King Charles’ highly anticipated visit to Washington this week as part of ceremonies commemorating the 250th anniversary of America’s independence will be his first visit to the United States since his accession to the throne in 2022.
He can expect the warmest welcome from Donald Trump.
Differences over the war in Iran may have soured the president’s relationship with Her Majesty’s government, but Trump remains an ardent admirer of the King, whom he incredibly describes as “a good friend of mine”. With the recent ouster of Viktor Orban and Trump’s excruciating row with the Pope, it could be argued that King Charles is the only European leader with whom the president still has good relations, whether as head of government or head of state. Except Vladimir Putin, of course.
Despite scandals that have damaged the reputation of some other members of the royal family, the Crown is still Britain’s largest soft power asset by far. No matter where they stand on the political spectrum, few leaders are immune to the mesmerizing power of the British royal family. Even Malcolm Turnbull, when asked by a journalist whether he was still a republican after listening to the late Queen, politely replied, “I’m an Elizabethan.” (When, after a while, I told this anecdote to His Majesty in my own audience, he was very pleased.)
A lifetime of training for this role has made King Charles a skilled diplomat with experience (including more than 50 years of personal acquaintance with world leaders) that no State Department official, no matter how accomplished, could (as they will tell you) hope to match.
Although planning for the visit began long before the Iran war and the ensuing diplomatic fallout, it could not have come at a more opportune time. Relations between the two countries have not been this bad since then. 1956 Suez crisis. It was not even as bad as existing tensions: President Eisenhower may have punished Britain for its ill-fated military intervention in Egypt following its nationalization of the Suez Canal, but he never questioned the importance of NATO or threatened other important British strategic interests.
Just as there is a remarkable similarity between the circumstances of the King’s visit this week and the circumstances of the Queen’s first visit to the United States in 1957, Suez has a striking historical resonance in the current disputes over Iran.
In 1956 the roles were reversed. The aggressor was England. In coalition with France and Israel, it attacked a Muslim country in the Middle East against the will of the American administration. One of the stated goals was to achieve regime change to depose Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. In its early stages, the attack on Port Said by British and French armed forces was a military success in the limited sense, overcoming Egypt’s negligible military strength. But it was a strategic disaster for Britain.
Eisenhower was furious. The neocolonial assumptions underlying the intervention deeply offended American sensibilities. It didn’t help matters that the attack took place a week before the American elections in which Eisenhower was running for a second term. Britain backed down after the president used the dollar’s power in foreign exchange markets, causing a rally in the pound sterling, devaluing it.
The Suez crisis deeply divided the ruling Conservative Party and destroyed Antony Eden’s premiership. Nasser’s reputation grew as he acted as a defender of Third World nations who stood up to Western aggression (and conveniently ignored America’s decisive role in ending the conflict). While Eden was deposed within two months, Nasser remained in power until his death 14 years later.
While the tense relationship between the United States and Britain began to improve with Eden’s resignation, America’s suspicions of Britain remained deep. There has always been an anti-British bias in US politics, as there is in Australia. But unlike Australia, where hostility towards Britain is largely found only among left-wing parties, in America this hostility – for different historical reasons – exists among both Democrats and Republicans. The Suez crisis strengthened these feelings.
It was against this backdrop that the Queen made her first royal visit to the United States. Like King Charles, he was feted at a banquet at the White House, but like him he did not address a joint session of Congress. His visit also marked an important commemoration; in this case the 350th anniversary of British settlement. The Queen’s good will did much to restore pre-Suez relations and revive anti-British sentiment.
One of the fruits of repairing the relationship was the United States’ decision the following year to share submarine nuclear propulsion technology with Britain; it was something he had never done before (and wouldn’t do again until 2021, when Scott Morrison signed the AUKUS agreement).
70 years have passed since the Suez crisis. There is almost unanimous agreement among British historians that this marked a significant – arguably the most significant – turning point in the decline of Britain’s post-war global power. Historians in future decades may judge that America’s war against Iran – ill-conceived and ill-executed, undoubtedly a military success but already an obvious strategic failure – marked for Britain, as at Suez, a significant period in the decline of American power.
The king’s visit could be salve to the wounds of the tortured Anglo-American relationship; No amount of royal flattery can repair the more lasting damage to America’s global influence.
George Brandis is the former high commissioner to the United Kingdom and a former Liberal senator and federal attorney general. He is a professor at ANU’s National Security College.
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George Brandis is the former high commissioner to the United Kingdom and a former Liberal senator and federal attorney general. He is currently a professor at the ANU’s National Security College.
