It didn’t seem like US President Donald Trump would be getting a state visit to the UK after he retweeted some posts and videos from the far-right hate group Britain First. It was pretty much universally decided by the entire United Kingdom, including British Prime Minister Theresa May, that the guy didn’t belong here, so the state visit seemed like a moot point. May made it clear that Trump’s actions were unacceptable and wouldn’t be tolerated in the UK and that was that.
But now, as the two of them have met up in Davos at the World Economic Forum, the tables seem to have turned.
May is being friendly with Trump again and the state visit to the UK is, once again, a topic of discussion. If the visit does go through, it will certainly be a controversial one, with some speculating that the protests will rival that which came after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Others are speculating the kind of silence that met the Japanese leader when he visited right after the Second World War.
May extending the state visit invitation back to Trump is a risky move, and one that’s sure to cause a lot of upset. The pair of world leaders met for a brief quarter of an hour at the conference in which the President promised that America would forever “be there” in case it was needed by Britain.
He told May that he and his administration and the American people “love your country.” Doubts are still being cast that the visit will actually happen, however.
There are still doubts that the state visit will happen
According to sources on Downing Street with contacts in the senior staff of the British government, this proposed visit is expected to take place in the second half of this year, following May and Trump’s next public meeting, which will be at the NATO summit that will be taking place in July in Brussels.
However, another source says that the planned visit will be a working visit, which pushes the prospect of the visit further and further into the unforeseeable future, which is leading to speculation that the state visit may never happen at all (again).
The initial state visit invitation was extended to Trump by May just a few days after he was inaugurated into the White House.
It’s now been over a year since Trump first took office as the President of the United States and the state visit still has yet to happen. As soon as the Prime Minister and the President traded barbs about the Britain First posts back in November – Trump retweeted institutionalised hatred and then May criticised him for it and then angrily shot back at her that she should focus on her own terrorist problem instead of criticising his – Downing Street postponed the state visit indefinitely. But now, it seems as though it’s back on.
US Presidents usually have to wait years for state visit invitation
Presidents of the United States generally have to wait a number of years before they get a state visit invitation, but Trump only had to wait a few days – perhaps that was why this downfall began.
Who knows? You jump the gun on The Donald, you regret it later. That’s the lesson we should learn from all this. May had to learn it the hard way. State visits are supposed to include a ceremonious welcoming by the Queen herself, who can legally kill Trump, let’s not forget, as well as a carriage ride down the Mall and a Buckingham Palace banquet.
Trump had originally decided he didn’t want a state visit. If they don’t want me to visit, then I don’t want to visit – that was his thinking. But then he decided to find a loophole and come to the UK for a working visit to move the US embassy, criticising Barack Obama’s original deal as a “peanuts” price for an “off location,” although what he singularly fails to point out is that this deal was initially set up by George W. Bush.
