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O<\/span>f the many jokes cracked by King Charles during his visit to Washington, the one recalling the definitive 18th-century Anglo-French contest for dominion over the New World was the most pointed. Speaking at a state banquet<\/a> in the White House, Charles turned to Donald Trump and said: \u201cYou recently commented, Mr President, that if it were not for the United States, European countries would be speaking German. Dare I say that, if it wasn\u2019t for us, you\u2019d be speaking French<\/a>!\u201d<\/p>\n Did Trump get it? Who knows? Broadly speaking, history, even their own, is not most Americans\u2019 favourite subject. A forward-looking people, they do not dwell on the past, nor hanker after the illusory felicities of former glories. While generations of Britons still wallow in nostalgia for Spitfires, Churchill and Vera Lynn (and beating the French), Americans typically seek new metaphorical mountains to climb. Theirs is a positive outlook, on the whole. Except, under Trump, it has twisted into a revived, ugly version of US \u201cmanifest destiny<\/a>\u201d imperialism.<\/p>\n In his quiet, understated way, Charles had a lot to say about all that. Addressing Congress<\/a>, he did not give Trump the serious tongue-lashing many in Britain (myself included<\/a>) had been hoping for. Given the constitutional and political constraints, it was a ballsy performance<\/a> nonetheless. Charles may have succeeded in temporarily easing US-UK frictions. But his bigger achievement was to remind Americans, ever so gently, of who they are, where they come from, and how very much better they could and should be doing.<\/p>\n To put it mildly, the US, led by its manic president and the Republican party, has been acting out of character for a while now. Charles\u2019s proffered antidote was calm, balm \u2013 and perspective. He supplied a mature, knowing lens through which to view, rise above and look beyond the trials and tribulations of the Trump era. He articulated a belief in the US that Americans are in danger of losing. He spoke of unity<\/a> as an essential condition of success. He stressed that what the US does matters everywhere. Charles\u2019s subtle, much-needed history lesson may have done more than Trump ever has to make the US feel great again.<\/p>\n The reaction of Democrats and many Republicans in a fractured Congress was telling. Again and again, they rose together<\/a> to applaud the king\u2019s evidently sincere conviction, implicit rather than explicit, that the US will get through this, will come to its senses, will rediscover its principles, will once more aspire to act as a moral force for good \u2013 his conviction that the nightmare will end, as, history shows, nightmares always do.<\/p>\n Remember Magna Carta? That English charter of 1215 curbing the power of kings was a crib sheet for the US\u2019s founding fathers and had been cited at least 160 times in US supreme court cases, Charles said. It established \u201cthe principle that executive power<\/a> is subject to checks and balances\u201d. Who could miss this real-life king\u2019s deft allusion to the importunities of the overweening pseudo-king in the White House? Democrats certainly didn\u2019t. They stood and cheered.<\/p>\n Remember the 1688 bill of rights, product of the English civil war and the struggle for parliamentary sovereignty? Chunks of that text were lifted verbatim and incorporated in the 1791 US bill of rights, he noted. Here was candid royal backing for those who fear present-day US civil liberties are falling victim to recycled tyranny. Remember 9\/11<\/a>, a quarter of a century on? Nato countries such as Britain certainly do, Charles said. They also remember how they rallied round the US. Unspoken message: value the support and loyalty of the UK and your European allies. And reciprocate. Help Ukraine.<\/p>\n The king\u2019s reminiscences about previous royal tours further served to refresh collective American historical memory \u2013 and underscore his theme: that no matter how big or strong, no single country can go it alone for long. Charles\u2019s mother, Elizabeth II, had been a good friend to every president since Eisenhower. Such connections, he suggested, reflected the deep, abiding ties between the two peoples. The US, though a successful, independent nation, remained rooted in Britain and Europe. And, he almost said, don\u2019t you ever forget it!<\/p>\n In a way, it was obvious, hackneyed, even manipulative stuff. But the enthusiastic reaction in Congress and the US media suggested Americans \u2013 their national sense of self under daily assault, their fears for the future ever more pronounced, their nerves exhausted and lives disrupted by endless Trump traumas and tantrums \u2013 badly needed to hear it. George Canning, Britain\u2019s foreign secretary in 1826, famously \u201ccalled the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old\u201d. Through Charles\u2019s reaffirming visit, the \u201cOld World\u201d returned the favour.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true. Politically as well as historically, Trump\u2019s reign has thrown the US radically off-balance. Half the country seems to think it\u2019s at war with an enemy within and ungrateful, rapacious foreign allies. The other half despairs of a president who actively undermines the democratic values and laws rebellious colonists fought to uphold 250 years ago and upon which the US constitution \u2013 and US legitimacy in the world \u2013 rests. King Charles went to Washington to save Britain\u2019s bacon. Through his example and unassuming advice, he showed the US how to save itself.<\/p>\n Will Americans heed his message? Will they take history\u2019s lessons to heart? Or will it all turn out to be a temporary blip, a fleeting moment of goodwill and good manners, a mere gap in the clouds? No sooner had Charles left Washington than Trump, predictably, began exploiting their private conversations<\/a> to justify his Iranian inanities.<\/p>\n The Iran war \u2013 barely mentioned during this visit for fear of eruptions \u2013 is an acid test. If the Trump administration were to adopt Charles\u2019s calm approach, stand back and dispassionately examine the history of this senseless feud<\/a>, thinking back to the CIA\u2019s anti-democratic 1953 Mossadegh coup<\/a>, the installation of the Shah\u2019s dictatorship, and the long decades of irrational vilification, mutual ostracism and sanctions that followed the 1979 revolution \u2013 including US support for Saddam\u2019s Hussein\u2019s 1980s war of aggression<\/a> and Israel\u2019s long, lethal shadow war \u2013 maybe it would act differently now.<\/p>\n Since he apparently likes the British way of doing things \u2013 and in the spirit of Charles\u2019s visit \u2013 Trump should follow the UK\u2019s prescriptions<\/a>, not restart the war. De-escalate, pursue unconditional, good-faith negotiations, and offer an end to sanctions and diplomatic normalisation in return for Iran\u2019s pledge to forgo nuclear weapons development and close down regional proxies. That\u2019s the deal everyone is waiting for. It\u2019s the only one that will stick.<\/p>\n If Trump, taking the long view for once, chose to do it, he could belatedly put the US back on the right side of history. And king or no kings, the world would have reason to celebrate the week Mr Windsor went to Washington.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Of the many jokes cracked by King Charles during his visit to Washington, the one recalling the definitive 18th-century Anglo-French contest for dominion over the New World was the most pointed. Speaking at a state banquet in the White House, Charles turned to Donald Trump and said: \u201cYou recently commented, Mr President, that if it … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/The-king-went-to-Washington-to-save-Britains-bacon-He.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29399,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29397\/revisions\/29399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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