The weeks and months ahead will determine whether Keir Starmer has been naive.
We will find out just how successful the attempt to deepen a bond with this mercurial president has been.
Has the prime minister actually achieved something with this state visit, or will it amount to nothing?
But there is plenty to absorb from these remarkable two days.
Here are my immediate reflections.
Everyone happy
First, there is no question that both sides are very happy with how it went.
I had a quick chat with Donald Trump‘s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, as the PM-president talks wrapped up at Chequers.
Her face and her persona said it all. But she spelt it out anyway for me: “The whole thing has been just great.”
“Every part of it. Dinner was the best bit,” she told me, before adding: “I just want to do it all over again.”
But this wasn’t a trip to Disneyland. It was the real deal; an attempt by one country to woo another with the best it’s got to offer, because it needs to. With Trump, you’re in, or you’re out. It’s that simple.
The British side believes this state visit has been excellent for them too.
“I think this was a big win for the PM, after a torrid few weeks…” one diplomatic source told me tonight.
Another said: “It was great. All very positive.”
Tech bonanza
The “who’s who” and “who’s where” at the state banquet had been a hint of the day that followed. The US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant was next to the Queen.
The business-orientated dinner at the castle morphed into a business round table a day later at the PM’s country residence Chequers. The question for me then was: What were the outcomes? The deliverables?
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So much of this, always, is about flattery. And so the prime minister mimicked the president’s style at the event. He used superlatives to frame a massive tech deal which he said would amount to £250bn “flowing both ways across the Atlantic”.
It was, Starmer said, the “biggest investment package of its kind in British history, by a country mile”. It sounded very Trumpian.
The “Tech Prosperity Deal” really does bring inward investment to Britain. Thousands of jobs promised; tech, AI, data centres and the nuclear energy required to power it all.
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It sounded very exciting but needs to be seen to be believed. And we don’t know what the trade-off is. “Don’t be cynical,” one UK source told me.
The broad ambition seems to be a kind of continuum of the ‘special relationship’ between the UK and the US, pushing into the next chapter of the 21st century.
If it was defence and security ties at the start of the relationship back in the mid 20th century, now it’s about common frameworks to harness new challenges like AI and to lead, together.
No regulation?
Delivering this new tech deal would be easier if Britain was to realise its Brexit potential. That’s the view of Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick who I also managed to corner for a few seconds.
I asked Lutnick what America wants in return.
“Deregulation…!” he said. “Don’t copy Europe. Copy America.”
I asked if he thought the UK was willing to ditch its digital services tax.
“Ask them,” he said, and then added: “If Starmer doesn’t [scrap it], it isn’t for the lack of us reminding him!”
The UK’s Digital Services Tax brings in about £900m a year for the UK Treasury. The US tech industry considers it an “aberration in the tax code” and wants it scrapped.
Would scrapping it grow the economy more than the revenue it brings in? We’ll see what the Labour government decides in November’s budget.
The optimists argue there is, maybe, an opportunity right now for the UK to turn itself into an agile independent economy if it can get the balance of regulation right. The Brexit dividend.
Agreeing to disagree
I thought the personal rapport between the PM and the president was fascinating.
Despite being so different politically, the two men genuinely seem to get on well.
Susie Wiles emphasised this rapport to me. Even she seemed surprised.
Their relationship almost seems now to be in a place where they can as individuals, and therefore as governments maybe, agree to disagree without Britain feeling concerned that Trump’s America will punish it. Not many other countries can say that.
Of course all this may turn out to be deeply naive, but for now Starmer is happy.
The example today was the UK plans to recognise a Palestinian state. Trump is hugely against this, but he seemed relaxed about this big geopolitical difference today. That was striking given Trump’s character.
The banquet speeches
The banquet speeches were more political than I had anticipated.
As a prince, the king was overtly political. He is much less so these days, but at the banquet there was one moment that struck me.
As King Charles talked about the defence of Ukraine, he turned, intentionally I thought, to Trump as he underlined how the allies will stand together. It was pointed, as Europe wonders where Trump is on Ukraine.
Was the president irritated? I don’t know, but it was an intentional (and not all that subtle) political intervention by the King to the president. Fascinating.
As for the president’s speech, well of course he couldn’t resist a dig at the Democrats. Even in St George’s Hall, in Windsor Castle, he is the political showman and well aware the cameras are rolling.
Where were the real people?
If there was one thing entirely absent from the state visit, it was real people.
There was a strange sterility to the whole visit. The public was kept at a great distance, beyond the walls of the castle and the security fences of Chequers.
That said, it was striking that opponents of the president, and those who love him, were notably small in number. It was a very different vibe from his last state visit in 2019.
In all, the British government will take this state visit as a big win. But it’s a big gamble too.
If the critics are right with their “authoritarian” warnings, the images from the past two days will come back to haunt the British establishment.
