Donald Trump has proved the UK-US relationship goes beyond who holds keys to No10 and White House - Ben Leo

Ben Leo
Tue, 28 Apr 2026 18:31:07 +0000
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"What a beautiful British day this is!", joked President Trump as he began one of the best speeches of his political career in a rain-soaked Washington.

As the King watched on yards away, it was a presidential speech of epic proportions that might have just salvaged the so-called Special Relationship after all.

Even a curiously-timed Financial Times expose about UK ambassador to the US, Christian Turner - the man who replaced Peter Mandelson - wasn’t enough to dampen spirits in dreary DC.

In a tale of history, family, love and connection, the President joyfully told how Americans carried British culture, character, creed, moral courage, love of liberty, and sense of destiny long before independence 250 years ago.

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Trump told the world: “America’s founding was the culmination of hundreds of years of thought, struggle, sweat, blood and sacrifice on both sides of the Atlantic.

“Fate drew a long arch from the meadow at Runnymede to the streets of Philadelphia that ran through the lives of people born and bred on the British code that no man should be denied either justice or right.

“American patriots today can sing ‘my country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty’, only because our colonial ancestors foresang ‘God Save the King’.”

In a touching moment, the President paid tribute to her late majesty Queen Elizabeth II, poignantly pointing to a tree planted by the late monarch in 1991 on the South Lawn of the White House.

“She was an incredible woman, who I had the privilege of getting to know, a very special woman who is greatly missed on great sides of that mighty Atlantic. Long ago, she planted a young tree.

“It’s tripled in size and tripled in strength, very much as our nations have. It was laid with British hands but grew in American soil.

“Today it stands tall and proud, reaching ever higher. And this morning it reminds us that the mightiest of trees, like the greatest of nations, must be anchored by the strongest and deepest of roots.

“In the centuries since we won our independence, Americans have had no closer friends than the British. We share that same root.”

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After months of back and forth between Mr Trump and Keir Starmer, the degradation of the special relationship unfolded in world view.

Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of War, brutally mocked Britain’s Royal Navy.

Mr Trump told me personally two weeks ago that Keir Starmer was akin to Neville Chamberlain.

And that came weeks after the President mocked the Prime Minister for “being no Churchill”, whose only chance of political survival is to drill in the North Sea and stop immigration.

But, in typical Trump fashion, we again learned the bombastic and often rude President can behave himself when he wants to.

He declared: “Americans carried within us the rarest of gifts — moral courage — and it came from a small but mighty kingdom from across the sea... This land was settled and forged by men [and] women who bore in their souls the blood and noble spirit of the British."

Today proved the UK-US relationship goes beyond that of Donald Trump and Keir Starmer.

It is an enduring and centuries-old alliance of liberty, culture, moral courage, and love of freedom - and nobody in No10 or the White House can ever rewrite the history books.