“Both sides will be satisfied with how the state visit and press conference played out,” said Michael Martins, an economic adviser at the U.S. Embassy in London during Trump’s last state visit, who now has his own consultancy.
“The White House and No. 10 lined up business and investment announcements to help move past the turbulence of Mandelson’s resignation and Charlie Kirk’s killing last week,” he said, referencing the two big domestic stories engulfing each of the leaders.
The question for Downing Street is whether it has another Trump card up its sleeve amid the potentially choppy diplomatic waters ahead.
“He’s clearly got a thing with the royal family, and we may as well try to use that soft power effectively,” Barwell said.
But a third state visit might be too much even for Trump, who said he hoped he’d be the first and last person to be honored with a second state visit.
“I guess one of the things that they would probably be thinking about is whether either the king or the Prince of Wales does a visit to the U.S.,” Barwell suggested.
Graham Lanktree, Tom Bristow, Joe Bambridge, Dan Bloom and Emilio Casalicchio contributed to this report.