Enda Brady: Charles did his job well this week, but will it be enough to sate Trump?

Queen Camilla, king Charles, US president Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump outside the White House in Washington DC for a state dinner last Tuesday. Picture: Aaron Chown/PA

This was a week when the UK needed its monarch to step up and push back against Trump’s America. King Charles did so, in his own way, and there couldn’t have been a more perfect response to some of the insults hurled across the Atlantic recently.

There had even been suggestions that the three-day state visit wouldn’t go ahead after the attempted shooting at that reception for journalists at the weekend.

But Charles has waited his whole life to emerge from his mother’s shadow and this was too good an opportunity to miss. Too big a stage not to address. There was also the chance to deliver a better speech than Queen Elizabeth II managed to in 1991 — in much friendlier times — when she addressed a joint session of the US Congress.

There is a feeling in the UK that nothing is good enough for president Trump, not even that unprecedented second state visit that he received in September. No sooner had the red carpet been put away than he started with the angry commentary.

Barbed remarks about Keir Starmer, the prime minister and Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, quickly followed. When the UK refused to join him and Israel in bombing Iran, he turned his fire on the Royal Navy. He has constantly belittled Nato and European security.

What particularly hurt people in Britain was his accusation that their soldiers had shied away from the worst of the conflict in Afghanistan, post-9/11. For the record, the UK lost 457 military personnel there between 2001-21, after Nato invoked Article 5, stating that an attack on one is an attack on all.

It should be noted too that Charles has a huge amount of time and respect for president Zelenskiy of Ukraine and regularly finds time in his diary and schedule when he visits London. (Note that no time could be found for California-based prince Harry on this trip to the USA).

So, with all that baggage in the background, the onus was on King Charles to deliver a speech that wouldn’t anger Trump or the Maga movement, but would subtly land its message.

He did so, supremely well, receiving no fewer than 12 standing ovations, namechecking the Royal Navy, Nato, and Ukraine.

Charles is a quiet, intelligent man who much prefers nature and animals to the razzmatazz of life in Trump’s court. You couldn’t put two more different men together, and yet somehow, this worked well this week, for both sides.

The UK has been desperate to re-set relations with Trump’s America, find some common ground and rebuild.

There has long been a feeling in London that the so-called ‘special relationship’ is a one-way street these days. Thatcher and Reagan hit it off, so too Blair and Bush. But Starmer and Trump?

And what can the UK really offer the world’s number one superpower? Another state visit for an increasingly belligerent president? Tick.

The one thing Trump has repeatedly demanded is that his Turnberry golf course in Scotland be awarded the Open championship. This has reportedly been brought up at government level on numerous occasions, to no avail.

The news that Royal Lytham St Anne’s will host the tournament in 2028 was quietly announced hours before Charles and Camilla boarded their flight to the US. If Trump was annoyed, he didn’t show it.

The UK royals will probably feel relieved that this week passed off without any problems and that Trump and his entourage behaved themselves. The big question now is what happens next?

Has enough been done to keep him happy and mend the relationship?

There is a school of thought that the Brits will now play a waiting game and just see out this Trump administration. No more state visits are on the cards, though Prince William will attend this summer’s Men’s Fifa World Cup.

After all, what can possibly happen in just three years? The problem with that strategy is that with Trump a lifetime can happen in three hours. And what comes after him? President Vance anyone?

The war in Iran is not going away, nor are the impending fuel shortages that countries like the UK will soon suffer as a result of Trump and Israel’s conflict, and Iran’s response to it.

My guess is that Trump will give it a respectful 72 hours after Charles and Camilla have left before resuming his attacks on Starmer, Nato and the Royal Navy.

Charles said what he came to say, landed his messages in a clever way, and has absolutely made the most of the Americans’ fascination with all things ‘royal’.

He couldn’t have pulled it off without his wife, Camilla, by his side. I’ve watched her work a room and she is an absolute machine when it comes to charm and charisma.

Many people feel that William and Kate are the power behind the current crown, but the reality is that it’s Camilla right now who knows how to talk to people, at all levels.

It should be noted too that no time could be found to meet the victims of the paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein on this trip.

The royals cited ongoing police investigations on both sides of the Atlantic as their reason for not engaging with them. I think that was a mistake, though you can see their fear of private conversations ending up in the newspapers.

Camilla has long been a powerful voice for victims of sexual abuse and has even spoken of an attempted indecent assault she was subjected to by a man on a train in London, years ago. Ultimately they’ve taken advice and decided against meeting anyone who was abused by Epstein or the men around him.

This will go down in history as the UK’s honest attempt to make friends with Trump’s America and remind Americans that this is a friendship that has outlasted presidents, kings and queens.

The British view is that while the personnel may change, the love endures.

But how long until a certain someone fires off an ALL CAPS rant late at night about Starmer, the state of London, or why the UK isn’t what it was?