Here’s everything Trump said about the UK, royals in BBC interview
President Donald Trump heaped praise and criticism on United Kingdom politicians in an interview with the BBC on Thursday, April 23, days before King Charles III and Queen Camilla are set to visit the United States.
Charles, 77, and Camilla, 78, will stay in the U.S. from April 27 to 30 at Trump’s invitation, during which they will attend a dinner at the White House, a private meeting with the president and deliver an address before Congress.
The visit, which the U.K. foreign office told the BBC would celebrate the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence and a partnership of “shared prosperity, security and history,” comes amid tensions between Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over Starmer’s reluctance to get involved in the Iran war and his refusal to let the United States launch attacks from British military bases, as previously reported by USA TODAY.
In a five-minute phone interview with BBC reporter Sarah Smith, Trump complimented the King while dishing out quips about the Prime Minister.
Here’s what Trump said about the royals and the United Kingdom.
Trump calls King Charles ‘fantastic’
When asked if he thought the royal pair’s visit would help repair U.S.-U.K. relations, Trump said, “absolutely.”
“He’s fantastic,” Trump said of King Charles III. “He’s a fantastic man. Absolutely, the answer is yes.”
The president added, “I know him well, I’ve known him for years. He’s a brave man, and he’s a great man. They would absolutely be a positive.”
UK Prime Minister can ‘recover’ with immigration policies
When asked about a Truth Social post in which Trump criticized Starmer’s appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson as the U.K.’s ambassador to the U.S., the president said the Prime Minister still had time to “recover.”
“If he opened the North Sea and if his immigration policies became strong, which right now they’re not, he can recover, but if he doesn’t, I don’t think he has a chance,” he said.
Later Thursday, Keir told BBC broadcasters that he makes his decisions “based on what’s in the British national interest and not what other people say or do.”
“That is why I took the decision that we would not be dragged into the war in Iran,” Keir continued. “I’m not going to be diverted or deflected from that by what anybody else says.”
US doesn’t ‘need’ help, but UK should offer support in Iran
When speaking on Starmer and Iran, Trump made a point to say that the U.S. didn’t “need” the U.K.’s help, but that the country “should” have supported the war effort.
“I didn’t need them at all, but they should’ve been there. I didn’t need them, obviously,” he said. “We’ve wiped Iran’s military out. I didn’t need anybody.”
He described his requests for help from allies as “more of a test,” saying he “wanted to see whether or not they would be involved.”
He also defended his widely-criticized threats made against Iran earlier in April, when he declared “a whole civilization will die tonight.”
“The other side is dying to make a deal,” he told the BBC. “So whatever I’m saying or whatever I’m doing, it seems to be working very well.”
Threatening new tariffs
After ending the conversation by warning that the BBC should be “very careful” or it could “destroy” its reputation, referencing his multi-billion-dollar defamation lawsuit over the editing of a Panorama documentary, Trump levied new tariff threats against the United Kingdom.
The president told reporters in the Oval Office later that day that the United Kingdom would be hit with a new tariff if it did not drop its 2% digital services tax on big U.S. technology firms.
“We’ve been looking at it, and we can meet that very easily by just putting a big tariff on the U.K., so they better be careful,” he said.
A dig at Prince Harry
Trump also threw a dig at Prince Harry after reporters asked him in the same Oval Office interview if it was “appropriate” for a royal to call on the president to do more to end the war in Ukraine, as the Duke of Sussex had done.
“Prince Harry is not speaking for the U.K. That’s for sure,” Trump responded after sending his regards to Harry’s wife, Duchess Meghan. “I think I’m speaking for the U.K. more than Prince Harry, but I appreciate his advice.”
Harry traveled to Kyiv, Ukraine, on April 23 to call on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war, according to Reuters. He also spoke about American leadership’s duty to do more to end the war.
“This is a moment for American leadership, a moment for America to show that it can honor its international treaty obligations, not out of charity, but out of its own enduring role in global security and strategic stability,” he said, as reported by USA TODAY.
