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  • The Guardian

    Love, hate … indifference: is US-UK relationship still special?

    From Winston Churchill to Donald Trump’s state visit in June, the history of transatlantic ties has hinged on personalities as much as politics
    by Simon Tisdall Apr 28, 2019 8 minutes

    Donald Trump’s three-day state visit in early June, confirmed last week, will place unique strains on the so-called “special relationship” between the US and Britain – or so it is claimed. The 45th US president is undoubtedly a divisive figure. Polls suggest three quarters of Britons object to his policies and personal behaviour. Like a boorish house guest, Trump seems to delight in upsetting his hosts.

    Yet controversial visits by US presidents are nothing new. Ronald Reagan encountered furious protests in 1982 after a decision – agreed with Margaret Thatcher – to deploy nuclear-armed cruise missiles at British bases. George W Bush faced a similarly hostile reception when he came to stay at Buckingham Palace in 2003, months after invading Iraq.

    It was not always this way. When newly elected John F Kennedy flew in with his glamorous young wife, Jackie, in 1961, half a million people lined the route from London airport to catch a glimpse of the Camelot fairytale. In 1977, Jimmy Carter visited George Washington’s ancestral home in the north-east. To ecstatic applause, the peanut farmer from Georgia told the people of Newcastle: “I am a Geordie now.”

    These contrasting high and lows accurately reflect the inherent vagaries of a relationship that has rarely run as smoothly as politicians on both sides of the Atlantic often pretend.

    It is a relationship born in conflict: the 1775-83 American war of independence. There were more clashes.

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