King Charles III to pay state visit to US in late April: palace

LONDON - King Charles III will visit the United States in late April, Buckingham Palace said Tuesday, despite some calls for the trip to be cancelled or delayed amid the Iran war.

Confirmation of the monarch's first state visit to the US comes at a rocky time for the so-called US-UK "special relationship", with US President Donald Trump repeatedly criticising Prime Minister Keir Starmer's reticence over the US-Israel war against Tehran.

The trip by the king and Queen Camilla would "celebrate the historic connections and the modern bilateral relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States", Buckingham Palace said in the statement.

It would be followed by an official visit to Bermuda which is a British Overseas Territory.

Washington's envoy to Britain, Warren Stephens, warned last week it would be a "big mistake" for the visit to be cancelled.

The US leader has repeatedly railed against Starmer since the start of the war, accusing him of not doing enough to support the US.

"This is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with," Trump said earlier this month, after Starmer initially declined to let US warplanes fly from UK bases to strike Iran.

"I'm disappointed with Keir," Trump has also said, slamming Starmer's "big mistake".

The visit will be Charles's first trip to the US as king, after he hosted Trump for a lavish state visit last September.

The mercurial US president has frequently expressed admiration for Britain's royal family, which threw him a full state dinner at Windsor Castle, military parades and a flyover during his September visit.

It was an unprecedented second state visit for Trump, who was also hosted in 2019 by the late queen Elizabeth II before her death.

But in his latest broadside aimed at Starmer's government, Trump told countries like Britain to secure the Strait of Hormuz themselves because "the USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us".

A YouGov poll published on Thursday found nearly half of British citizens opposed the visit to the US, with only a third saying it should go ahead.

Emily Thornberry, a senior MP in Starmer's ruling Labour party, said earlier this month it would be "safer to delay" the visit.

She warned that Charles and Camilla could be left feeling "embarrassed" because of the ongoing conflict.

"Why are we rewarding Donald Trump with a state visit from our king?" ask