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The United States was born in a violent rebellion against the British Crown. Like many of history's best stories, this one begins over tea, specifically tea being hurled into Boston Harbour in 1773. The Declaration of Independence that came soon after is in part a charge sheet directed at King George III for tyranny and abuse of power. So how did America over 250 years, go from rejecting a king to using royalty as part of the choreography of power? Why have modern royals given Trump a gilded welcome again and again? What does that tell us about the wider state of the world? And behind the pomp, what does their body language tell us about how they really feel? President Trump is the first and only president to have been honoured with two state visits to the uk. And now he is returning with favour. I've been asked a few times why the extra effort for this US president, especially when Trump is unpopular in Britain. A March 2026 YouGov poll found 81% of Brits view him unfavourably. Plus he's openly clashing with Britain's Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. So on the face of it, the idea of the King going to the USA can seem like a bit of an odd choice. But that misunderstands what monarchy is actually for. This is not Charles expressing a personal view or handing Trump some kind of moral endorsement. The King is Head of State and overseas visits of this kind happen on the advice of the government. So if a British monarch goes somewhere, it's because ministers have decided that sending the crown serves the national interest. And that's exactly what's happening here, as relations between the UK and the US are in need of some serious suit. Soothing the historical irony of it all sending a king to soothe things. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The first royal presidential relationship is one that never happened. George Washington and King George III never met. Washington was the anti king, elected, temporary, limited by public opinion, the Constitution and Congress. The presidency, after all, was designed to prevent monarchy from reappearing in American form. So for much of the 19th century, the idea of getting close to British royalty was politically awkward, if not toxic. America had broken from the Crown. It wasn't about to start swooning over it in public. The first engagement between a sitting U.S. president and a British royal was 1860. President James Buchanan, number 15 hosted the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. And this happened at the White House even before the so called special relationship came into being. It's clear that both sides were experimenting with something that they'd get Very good at using ceremony to soften politics. The first true icebreaker comes after the First World War. In December 1918, Woodrow Wilson became the first sitting US President to visit Britain and meet the king more than 140 years after independence. Which tells you either how politically sensitive and or how relatively unimportant this relationship had been. Wilson met George V a month and a half after the end of World War I, so the mood was jubilant. Wilson had brought the United States into the war on Britain's side the year before a fight, as Wilson put it, to make the world safe for democracy. So by the time he arrived in London, the old revolutionary estrangement had been overtaken by something bigger. Shared sacrifice, shared enemies, shared political values. To some extent, this is the moment that the relationship stops being psychologically impossible and starts becoming strategically quite useful. Now, while I was researching this episode, I was fascinated by how telling some of the photographs of these early encounters are. I did a post grad fellowship in the body language of world leaders, so I couldn't resist. And I want you to take a look at this image with me now. So this is taken outside Buckingham Palace. We have the President on the left and we have King George V on the right. You can see that both of them are upright and very self contained because stiffness was, culturally and socially, especially for men, very normal. We're not seeing emotional leakage or much facial animation. Britain obviously more restrained than the US even then, and public smiling. And photography was more rare back in the day. Not to mention that men of this age were used to standing still for ages because of the long exposure times of older photography. George V here dressed in his naval uniform symbolizing wartime monarchy. And Wilson is in mourning dress. You can see here that King George V's gaze looks watchful and quite under stress. And World War I had just ended. He'd visited the Western Front several times. It was very stressful for him personally because of his cousin was Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and his other cousin was Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. And he'd actually had to change the name of the British Royal family in 1917, I think from Saxe Coburg to Windsor because of the anti German sentiment. So there's a lot going on. And this photo is consistent with what contemporaries say about both men. So Wilson was described as reserved, orderly, punctual, hard to get close to official settings, self reliant. George V was regarded as quite dutiful, plain in manner, steady. So this absence of warmth between the two doesn't say much about the Relationship. It's more of a reflection of their public styles. But what is key here is this is a moment that is larger than either of these two men or anyone's personality. These are two systems being depicted here, monarchy and republic, showing they can now stand together, united in shared values. And you can tell that they know it's being recorded for history. Of course they do. And Wilson actually said as much at the Buckingham palace dinner. He said, for you and I, sir, I temporarily embody the spirit of two great nations. The duo that really changes everything is Franklin Roosevelt and King George Virginia. So in 1939, George VI and Queen Elizabeth, his wife, not Queen Elizabeth ii, became the first reigning British monarchs to visit the United States. Meanwhile, Europe was sliding toward catastrophe. And Roosevelt understood that if America was going to support Britain in World War II, Britain had to not seem distant, imperial and aristocratic, but human, familiar and worth backing. He was working against the current of American isolationism. So what did he do? He gave the King hot dogs at Hyde Park. So simple but brilliant politics. That visit and the wartime relationship that followed helped deepen the emotional foundations of the American Anglo alliance before Pearl harbor and through the war. After 1945, the stakes changed again. Britain was no longer an empire. At its zenith, America was now obviously the dominant Western power. That made the relationship asymmetrical, but also in some ways more valuable. The President had hard power. The monarchy had continuity, memory, glamour, symbolism. And no royal embodied that bargain more completely than Queen Elizabeth II. She met every U.S. president of her reign except Lyndon Johnson. Queen Elizabeth became the fixed point in a relationship defined by American turnover. Presidents came and went, she remained. That constancy gave the monarchy enormous diplomatic value. In an age of television increasingly obsessed with image and personality. You can see the warmth of that phase with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Now, he'd known the royal family during the war, so I suppose the relationship was unusually personal by presidential standards. After a stay at Balmoral in 1959, the Queen sent Eisenhower her recipe for drop scones with handwritten notes about adjusting the quantities. Now, this is, I admit, a very weird type of geopolitics, but a perfect example of how soft power can work. Post war UK American relations had immense strategic weight. NATO, intelligence sharing, nuclear cooperation, the architecture of the Western alliance topped off with scones. Then comes one of the most revealing Encounters of all. JFK and Queen Elizabeth II in 1961. This one is really fascinating because the Kennedys were the closest that America had come to manufacturing its own sense of royalty, beauty, charm, generational wealth. The Queen of course, represented something far older, as well as rank, continuity and history. So when they met at Buckingham palace, it was kind of like democratic glamour meeting hereditary glamour. By the 1960s, these royal presidential visits were very visual displays about status in the relationship in front of a mass audience of broadcast TV and glossy magazines. And take a look at this picture which was shown around the world. So this was taken inside Buckingham palace and Jackie Kennedy, the First lady, had just returned from Paris, and JFK had actually joked at the time that he was the man that had accompanied Jackie Kennedy to Paris. So she's basically, she's causing a sensation, and that's relevant because she's entering this environment feeling like almost a rival icon rather than a subordinate guest. And Jackie Kennedy actually told Gore Vidal that she thought the Queen resented her. And sure enough, you can see that their bodies are subtly orientated away from each other. Now, JFK had this trademark gesture when he spoke with a jabbing finger, and sure enough, there it is. And that was associated with him like a physical embodiment of action pushing the country forward. He looks somewhat relaxed and typically the more powerful someone is, the more relaxed they are in the setting. However, a little bit awkward. And of course, we know from the historical record that he had chronic debilitating back pain wearing a back brace daily at this point. So if he looks a bit stiff and rigid, that's probably why the Queen here is looking inviting but impenetrable. She is actually displaying what behavioural analysts refer to as a non Duchenne smile. The reason being the mouth muscles are engaged, the zygomatic major, but the eye muscles are not the orbicularis oculi. And that's essentially that the crow's feet aren't coming up around the eyes, which means that it's a performative smile rather than a spontaneous one, which is very typical of somebody trained for intense scrutiny. Prince Philip, though, displaying a genuine smile, notice the hands behind the back. This is such a classic British royal gesture. You'll notice that King Charles does this habitually as well. It signals confidence and control because it's a non defensive stance, exposing your vital organs at the front. And it also helps mask nervous tics when royals have to meet and greet the public, like fiddling with your hands or cufflinks. British upper class formal occasions at this point still demanded a lot of personal restraint when it came to social expectations and personal space. Americans, however, were starting to get a bit more fluent and looser in the spotlight 50 years ago, in 1976, for America's 200th anniversary of breaking free from Britain, Queen Elizabeth II was. Was invited as a guest of honour to the White House. So Gerald Ford hosted her as the President and he danced with her at the State Dinner. And this led to some of the most famous images of this relationship, which are quite incredible when you consider that two centuries earlier, the crown was what America had rejected, and now it had become an integral part of the pageantry through which America was celebrating itself. And at this point, the health of the relationship was probably at its most publicly secure. Not because these contradictions, republic, monarchy, had gone away, but because both sides had become comfortable with that and learned how to use them. Now let's look at the pictures. So this is a dance with Gerald Ford and Queen Elizabeth during the Bicentennial State Dinner. Dancing is literally an exercise in synchronization and coordination, behaviors that signal rapport between humans. Like people who don't like each other, typically don't want to dance with each other. Mirroring somebody's movements shows that you're comfortable and interested in somebody. Proxemics, which is the science of spatial distancing. If we look at this photo, they're obviously in an intimate range, which translates to the wider world as a close relationship. This is socially sanctioned intimate contact, essentially. And this dance has real historical charge, because 200 years after rejecting the crown, an American president and a British monarch literally moving in step with each other. And you can see that they're enjoying this. These are genuine expressions, genuine fixed eye contact and smiles, brows relaxed, no lip compression, no freezing or social overcompensation. Now, what we know, President Ford, his public style was described as quite physically straightforward. He was a former football player, known to be unshowy, less theatrical than some presidents. And the Queen, by contrast, a lot more restrained economy of movement and composure. And she didn't usually project an emotional abundance. But you can see here that she's genuinely relaxed and enjoying herself. So that doesn't read as trivial here in this relationship. This is a highly successful occasion. In fact, it's what diplomatic success looks like in body language and in a photograph. There's a fun fact here, too. One of the most awkward gaffes, apparently, in White House history. So Ford led the Queen onto the dance floor and then the band struck up playing. That's why the Lady Is A Tramp, which apparently was just a complete accident. And Ford was incandescent, reportedly, but the Queen found it funny. Ronald Reagan and the Queen got on extremely well. They looked natural together as well. Take a look at this photo which is very famous. Obviously, they look at ease with each other, not just because they both loved horses. This pictures from 1982, when they were riding together in Windsor, but because Regan understood performance, hierarchy and occasion. And the Queen, of course, understood the value of seeming to be above politics while also serving it. And even when the alliance hit strains, which it did at this period, including over the Falklands, when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982, Reagan's administration tried to balance between the two allies, Britain and Argentina, before eventually backing Britain. So, in other words, when the politics is wobbling, the deeper relationship between the two heads of state doesn't necessarily need to. And that's often the hidden work of these encounters. Not solving disagreements happening on a political level, but providing a kind of soft power glue to stop those disagreements from becoming a rupture. Now, looking a bit closer at the photograph. So this is happening basically right in the middle of the strain over the Falklands Wall, which gives it a heightened sense of importance. Photos like this, by the way, if you're looking at politicians together or heads of state, when people are performing another task, are much more revealing than when they're strictly posing, just because it's harder to mask your feelings when you're multitasking. There's no state room here, no armor of formal wear. They're mutually orientated towards each other in this shared activity. Similar posture, a strong cue of social engagement and compatible rhythm. And Reagan, of course, had a very fluent public Persona as a former actor, and crucially, here he'd been in Western movies riding horses. The Queen never looks exuberant, but you can tell that she's with one of her favourite presidents, doing something that she really enjoys. In the 21st century, the relationship became more exposed, at times more fragile and viral, because photos and events are shared instantly. President Obama and the Queen were warm, but the most discussed moment was Michelle Obama briefly putting an arm around the Queen. An instant global etiquette story. It's ridiculous. Was it breaking a rule? Strictly speaking, it broke the usual expectation of not touching the monarch first. But the Queen warmly reciprocated. More and more people in the UK think that monarchy is harder to justify today. But from a purely political perspective, it's an interesting, unique weapon, because the Prime Minister can push back, argue with the President, absorb the political friction of a difficult relationship, and then the monarch can go in and catch more flies with honey. That flexibility, being able to operate on two different registers simultaneously, is something very few countries can do. When Keir Starmer and Donald Trump are Publicly icy. Sending King Charles to go and see the President is not a contradiction, it's the point. The monarchy exists in part to keep that relationship alive when the politics gets difficult. So what should we be looking out for when King Charles and President Trump meet? Trump's body language and behaviour is probably one of the most documented of any living leader. He takes control of handshakes, pulling, gripping, occasionally locking, using physical contact to assert dominance before a word is even spoken. His resting posture is expansive and forward leaning. He fills rooms rather than adapting to them. But royalty has changed its calculus in the past because with the Queen, he visibly reined himself in, leaning down to her, allowing her to set the terms, exhibiting deference, which was strategic, probably as much as instinctive, because Trump repeatedly said he respects the monarchy, inherited his mother's admiration of it. Plus undermining an institution that lends him prestige serves no real purpose. The Queen had something that Charles is still building, though that unassailable, lifelong, globally recognized institutional gravity. King Charles is newer, more contested, and carrying some real complications, like the family turbulence and the fact that his lifelong record on climate multilateralism sits in direct tension with almost everything that Trump stands for. So Trump desires the prestige transfer. He wants to look welcomed at the highest level and historically significant. Charles needs something different out of this. He doesn't need to dominate and he certainly doesn't need too much rapport, intimacy. He needs to look calm, unruffled, fully in command of the ritual, so you can look out for the handshakes, the walking order, who's setting the tempo. These are all negotiations of status and dominance. And maybe if you see Charles reaching for his cufflinks, he might rather be painting watercolours. I'm Bianca Knofolo and this has been 250 years of tea between the US and the UK. I'll see you next time.