Well, it’s finally happening. He’s finally coming to the UK. After a ton of protests and controversy and petitions and Parliamentary debates, US President Donald Trump will be stopping by the UK on 13 July of this year. While it’s not an official state visit, and therefore he will not be getting the traditional celebrations or fanfare of one, he is still coming to the UK after so many signatures on petitions and British political figures tried to stop him. In order for it to become an official state visit, the President would have to stick around for more than a day, but he will be getting here and leaving within the same day this summer.
So, he’s found a nice little loophole in the demands of all of those protestors. They said no state visit – they didn’t say he couldn’t come for a day trip.
During his day in the UK, which is more of a formality than anything else (why else would you fly from Washington to London and then back to Washington in the same day if it wasn’t so you could tell people that you’d been there, no matter what anyone’s petition says?), Trump will be speaking to Queen Elizabeth II for a meet-and-greet and maybe some chit chat, before hopping over to Downing Street to shake hands with the Tories over there and talk business with British Prime Minister Theresa May, who has tangled with a number of times and maintains a love/hate relationship with.
Trump lashed out at May for, in his eyes, allowing terrorism into the UK when she called on him for retweeting posts from the vicious anti-Muslim hate group Britain First. But he has also praised her recently for joining him and French President Emmanuel Macron in launching those controversial air strikes against Syria – specifically the Assad regime, which was under fire (no pun intended) at the time for launching a chemical attack on their own people.
The regime denied the attack and said that it was staged, but aid workers on the scene confirmed that there had in fact been a chemical attack there and that many innocent Syrian people had died. And then the tensions rose.
Some British politicians are pleased about the visit
The response to Trump’s visit to the UK has been mixed, but some British officials are pretty excited about it.
British diplomat Kim Darroch, who has been trying to ease the tensions and sort this visit out for a while, has said that he is “delighted” that the President finally managed to get it all together. He’s particularly excited about the “bilateral talks” that he will be sharing with the Prime Minister. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson – this is his area, international relations – has said that the announcement of this visit is “fantastic news.” Johnson added that the US President is Britain’s “closest ally and friend” and promised that this will be “the greatest visit ever.” Is that a little presumptuous? Who knows but at least he’s happy.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was tasked with announcing the UK visit to a “tough crowd,” in her words.
Basically, it was "Take Your Kids to Work Day" in America and so the reporters had all taken their children into the Press Room. While Sanders was trying to tell the kids the exciting news that Trump was going to be visiting Britain, the kids were all more interested in asking her why he has been bombing Syria or why he fired James Comey simply for investigating his campaign’s alleged ties with the Russian government.
Public opposition turned this visit into a ‘working trip’
Trump’s UK visit was downgraded from a state visit to a “working trip” thanks to all the opposition to a visit taking place at all from the British public. The idea behind it was that all of those people who didn’t want him to come wouldn’t mind if it was more of a business trip, but as it turns out, that’s not the case and they’re still not happy. We’ll have to just wait and see what happens on the 13 of July.
