MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

King Charles prepares speech on 'reconciliation and renewal' to US Congress after White House welcome

The King will describe the “special relationship” as “one of the greatest alliances in human history” and stress that defense

King Charles III is preparing to deliver an address to a joint session of the US Congress at 3:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday, in which he will frame “reconciliation and renewal” as the defining themes of the bilateral relationship between London and Washington 250 years after American independence. The speech, expected to be one of the centerpieces of his state visit, comes after a heavily symbolic military welcome at the White House, where President Donald Trump extended to the monarch the highest protocol honor accorded by the United States to a visiting head of state.

The welcome ceremony took place mid-morning on the South Lawn of the presidential residence, with a 21-gun salute, the national anthems performed by the United States Marine Band, and an official military flyover. For the first time at a state visit, 300 active service members and 500 personnel from all six branches of the US Armed Forces took part in the formation. The royals then moved to the Oval Office for a bilateral meeting with Trump, while Queen Camilla and First Lady Melania Trump joined a cultural event with students at the White House tennis pavilion.

In his welcoming remarks, Trump said that since American independence, his country “has had no closer friends than the British” and recalled the meeting of Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt aboard HMS Prince of Wales during the Second World War, noting that the title was held by Charles III for longer than by any other person in British history. The president, a known admirer of the royal family, said he would have liked to attend the monarch's speech at the Capitol “but they told me it would be a step too far. It's not part of the protocol.”

According to an advance excerpt released by Buckingham Palace, Charles will tell lawmakers that “time and time again, our two countries have always found ways to come together,” a formulation that British media have interpreted as an implicit acknowledgment of recent tensions between Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the war on Iran and ongoing trade disputes. The King will describe the “special relationship” as “one of the greatest alliances in human history” and stress that defense, intelligence, and security ties “are measured not in years but in decades.” His intervention will also include references to Ukraine, the AUKUS alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and scientific and technological cooperation between the two countries. Charles III is only the second British monarch to address a joint session of Congress, following his mother Queen Elizabeth II in 1991.

The visit unfolds against an unusually tense bilateral backdrop. Trump has openly criticized the Labour government for its refusal to join the military offensive against Iran launched on February 28 and for keeping the Royal Navy out of the US naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. On the commercial front, Washington has imposed tariffs on the United Kingdom and has threatened additional duties if London does not eliminate its digital services tax targeting major US tech companies. To that friction was added last week the leak of an internal Pentagon memorandum published by Reuters, which considered reviewing US historic backing for British sovereignty over the Falklands as retaliation for the United Kingdom's lack of support over Iran, a disclosure MercoPress has covered in recent editions and which prompted a closing of ranks between Britain's ruling and opposition parties around the traditional position on the islands.

The monarch will also include in his speech a reference to the shooting on Saturday during the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, in which US officials identified Trump and members of his administration as likely targets. Following a security review, Buckingham Palace confirmed on Sunday that the trip would proceed as planned. The day will conclude with a state dinner at the White House, with toasts by the King and the president. The Epstein case remains off the agenda: despite calls from Democratic lawmakers such as Ro Khanna for the King to address the matter in his speech, Buckingham ruled out any meeting with victims of the late sex offender during the tour, citing potential implications for ongoing judicial investigations.