US president will not receive full fanfare of state visit in one-day trip on Friday 13 July
Donald Trump will make a “working visit” to the
UK on Friday 13 July, the UK and
USA have both confirmed, with the US president set to meet the
Queen during the trip.
The visit, which will take place immediately after a Nato summit in Brussels, will include bilateral talks with Theresa May, according to
Britain’s ambassador to the US.
Kim Darroch tweeted confirmation of the visit on Thursday afternoon.
It will not, however, be the full state visit the US president was promised when May visited Washington last year, meaning he will not be honoured with an official banquet at Buckingham Palace or a carriage procession up the Mall.
Downing Street has insisted the invitation for a full state visit still stands, but there is no timetable for it to take place.
A spokesman confirmed the July visit . “Further details will be set out in due course,” he said.
The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, welcomed the visit and hinted that it was overdue:
May invited Trump for a state visit when she became the first world leader to meet the president in the White House in January last year.
It was downgraded to a “working trip” after huge public opposition to the visit and MPs said Trump should not be given the opportunity to address parliament. He has clashed publicly with London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, who has said the president’s visit would result in mass peaceful protests and that Trump’s values were the polar opposite of Londoners’.
Khan tweeted on Thursday: “If he comes to London, President Trump will experience an open and diverse city that has always chosen unity over division and hope over fear. He will also no doubt see that Londoners hold their liberal values of freedom of speech very dear.”
Trump has claimed he called off a visit last year because of his displeasure at Barack Obama having sold the previous US embassy in Mayfair for “peanuts” and building a $1bn replacement. The sale of the building was signed off when George W Bush was still in the White House.
Human rights groups have vowed to protest against the visit in July.
Amnesty International UK’s director, Kate Allen, said: “When Donald Trump arrives on these shores, we and thousands of our supporters will very definitely be making our voices heard.
“Since moving into the White House, Mr Trump has shown an impatience bordering on intolerance toward peaceful protests, the media and even the democratic process itself. So his visit to Britain will be an important opportunity to underline the importance of free speech and the right to protest.”
The Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Jo Swinson, said her party would protest against Trump’s visit. “It is our opportunity to stand in solidarity with all the people he has abused and denigrated,” she said.
The announcement follows the high-profile state visit of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to the US this week, cementing a close relationship between the two leaders. There has been speculation that Macron hopes to deepen France’s ties with the US after the Brexit vote and establish his country as the US’s main ally in Europe.
Macron is said to have joked with Trump that France and the US have a “relation spéciale”, the phrase often used to describe the relationship between the UK and US. Macron also began his toast at a White House dinner by describing the setting as “full of history that the British burned down in 1815, and I say this in the most amicable way.”