The United Kingdom is welcoming President Donald Trump for a rare second state visit Wednesday.
Trump arrived Tuesday evening to London for what he called a great honor. The event is poised to show the pageantry of the state visit, with focuses on trade and technology initiatives underlying it.
Its the first time this has ever happened, someone was honored twice. It is a great honor. And this was at Windsor and they've never used Windsor castle for this before, usually its Buckingham palace, Trump said.
The King and Queen will formally welcome President Trump and First Lady before a lunch. The Trumps will privately place a wreath on the tomb of Queen Elizabeth II and view a beating retreat ceremony with military families before a state banquet.
This historic second state visit is set to highlight and renew the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. At the same time, the visit will recognize and celebrate the upcoming 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, a U.S. official said.
But beyond the pomp and circumstance of the event, officials expect policy discussions as Trump also will meet with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and business leaders.
This visit gives the President the opportunity to strengthen ties with a particularly close partner and ally, while advancing mutual economic and foreign policy interests. Our tradition of economic cooperation will continue with a historic trade agreement, which will feature three pillars, said a U.S. official.
Initiatives include a science and technology partnership worth potentially at least $10 billion dollars in investment, senior U.S. officials said. It also includes mutual cooperation in civil nuclear power, research and development and advances in defense technology cooperation.
Ahead of the visit, the UK announced a deal earlier in the week aimed at speeding up building of nuclear power stations and with commercial partnerships between U.S. and UK companies that will, in several cases, prepare to deploy advanced nuclear reactors the United Kingdom, a senior U.S. official said. It also announced new investments from companies including PayPal, BlackRock, Bank of America and CitiBank.
CEOs of American technology companies are expected to take part in a roundtable. OpenAI leader Sam Altman is expected to attend this week, according to a source familiar.
There's a broader sense that a technology partnership around things like AI, around space and future facing technologies if the U.S. and the UK could create that kind of partnership, then that's good for the whole of the Western world, said Duncan Edwards, CEO of the trade group British American Business. "So there's all those sort of things. On the tariff front, I think the UK will be looking to try to get relief on the steel tariffs currently at 25% on steel exports from the UK. Inevitably, they'll also be looking for a reduction in the tariffs on Scotch whiskey, which gets my vote, I have to say.
I think all sensible people should be celebrating the fact that the President has chosen to visit the UK, and the UK chose to invite him for, remarkably, for a second time, which is extremely rare. So it's a very positive sign the U.S. and UK relationship really matters in the world, Edwards said.
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The U.S. and UK announced an initial trade deal in May that offered the UK relief on some auto tariffs, but left more negotiation on steel and aluminum tariffs and did not address the UKs digital services tax.
The Starmer government is looking to solidify the trade deal that they've already negotiated and to put more detail on that, and to, in some sense, reinforce what seems to be a relatively positive relationship between Washington and London at a time of otherwise difficult relations across the Atlantic, said Ian Lesser, a distinguished fellow with the German Marshall Fund.
Lesser said both leaders are looking for something tangible out of the meetings that serve as a political booster.
I think the President's keen to have, you know, outcomes he can portray as wins, in terms of American economic nationalism. And Prime Minister Starmer and his government are keen to demonstrate that they have established, you know, re-established, a strong, quote, unquote, special relationship with the United States. And that's important, because although the trade deal that was agreed looks relatively favorable compared to others around the world, there's still a lot of unfinished details in that agreement said Lesser.
President Trump indicated he was open to discussing trade further with the UK after reaching an agreement earlier in the year. .
They want to see if they can refine the trade deal, and we made a deal, its a great deal. And I'm into helping them, our country is doing very well, we've never done this well, we have trillions coming in because of the tariffs and they'd like to see if they can get a little bit better of a deal so we'll talk with them, Trump said.
While the administration seeks to focus on the economy, in the backdrop is Russias continued war in Ukraine and Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.
I think probably as we look towards potential new rounds of sanctions on Moscow, Prime Minister Starmer will press the president on that question. Above all, I think President Trump, on the other hand, would prefer to concentrate on issues of economics and commerce, rather than much more difficult questions of foreign policy, where they may or may not agree, Lesser said.