With Donald Trump flexing his muscles like a dictator, Chris Riches fears King Charles’ planned summer visit to the White House could be a diplomatic disaster.
As the world stares in disbelief at US President Donald Trump’s behaviour over Venezuela and Greenland, King Charles’s advisors must be reaching for their paracetamol. In April, he and Queen Camilla are expected to jet to Trump’s side to celebrate the United States’ 250th anniversary of independence.
But by the time King Charles boards the plane, President Trump may have quit NATO to force the annexation of Greenland … or even sent in his troops to take it by force. It leaves King Charles in a terrible quandary and one which will have echoes of past royal blundering that history has already damned.
First of all let me be clear, I’m not equating Trump with Adolf Hitler – but the image of the craven Duke of Windsor’s 1937 visit to Nazi Germany where he met Hitler and gave Nazi salutes stained the Royal Family for decades.
A royal visit is viewed as a ‘rubber stamp’, and members of the Royal Family are already wary of pulling any levers for the capricious president.
Imagine if King Charles jetted to Moscow next week and shared a vodka or two with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin?
King Charles hosted Donald Trump during last year’s state visit (Image: Getty)
The world would erupt in righteous rage as Russia has invaded a sovereign country and slaughtered innocent civilians with their endless barrage of rockets.
Greenland is an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark and – although geographically part of North America – it’s been politically and culturally linked to Denmark, for over 300 years.
Its head of state is King Frederik X of Denmark (a distant relative of King Charles) and the Danes are responsible for Greenland’s defence and foreign policy.
Even if Denmark wanted to, they could not just ‘give it away’ like a free haircut.
Greenlanders in fact want more independence … the last thing they want is to be the US’s 51st state.
Putin has already praised Trump’s threats to put infantry troops on the ground in Greenland, saying it is clearly part of North America and should be the US’s – as it supports his invasion of Ukraine.
The UK does not need images like this days after Trump ‘seizes Greenland’ (Image: Getty)
Listen to what the Russian government’s own newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta says of Trump flexing his muscles in front of his bewildered NATO allies: “If Trump annexes Greenland by July 4, 2026, when America celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, he will go down in history as a figure who asserted the greatness of the United States.
“With Greenland, the US becomes the second largest country in the world after Russia, surpassing Canada in area.
“For Americans, that’s on par with such planetary events as the abolition of slavery by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 or the territorial conquests of the Napoleonic Wars.
“If, thanks to Trump, Greenland becomes part of America… for sure the American people will not forget such an achievement.”
Putin is LOVING the discord among once rock-solid allies, a discord Trump is hell-bent on sowing. He’s doing Putin’s work for him. It’s all very odd.
So if Trump accelerates his ‘Greenland grab’, and then King Charles jets over and poses by his side – the UK is slap bang in Trump’s camp and will be seen to have betrayed NATO and one of its founding members, Denmark.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will not just be having kittens about King Charles visiting Trump, but a whole clowder of cats, a plethora of pusses and a flood of felines.
It may be time for Buckingham Palace to ring the RAF and cancel that VIP Airbus.
