King Charles sends firm message to Trump on 'values' and free trade

King Charles's speech to the Canadian parliament walked a tricky line between supporting Canada without torpedoing Britain's efforts to tread softly with Trump

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In his speech to the Canadian Parliament, the King sent a stronger-than-expected message to Donald Trump today.

In the face of the US President’s goading, imposition of tariffs, and threats to annex his northern neighbour, Charles III warned Canada was facing unprecedented challenges in the postwar era in a world that has never been more dangerous and unstable.

But he insisted Canada would protect their self-determination, forge new economic relationships with allies based on free trade, strengthen their military, and in a pointed signal to his old friend in the White House, a big fan of the Royal Family, he stressed that the Crown would act as a force for stability and unity.

“As the (national) anthem reminds us, The True North is indeed strong and free,” he told parliament, citing a line from O Canada.

The King went on to suggest that Canada could be forced to seek alliances further afield from its troublesome nearest neighbour. “Canada is ready to build a coalition of like-minded countries that share its values, that believe in international co-operation and the free and open exchange of goods, services, and ideas. In this new, fast-evolving world, Canada is ready to lead,” he said.

The 76-year-old monarch, making his first visit to Canada since he became the country’s King in 2022, also reflected on the efforts of the country’s new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, to dial down the rhetoric since his election victory in April and sent a quiet, diplomatic message to Trump about Canadian values of mutual respect, while also emphasising Canada’s sovereignty.

“The Prime Minister and the President of the United States, for example, have begun defining a new economic and security relationship between Canada and the US, rooted in mutual respect and founded on common interests, to deliver transformational benefits for both sovereign nations,” he said.

King Charles III reviews the departure guard as he walks to board an aircraft while departing after a two-day visit in Ottawa (Photo credit: Patrick Doyle/AFP)

However, his 26-minute speech, written largely by the Canadian Government but redrafted after several discussions with the Royal Household about tone, did not shrink from the shockwave that Trump has sent through the two countries’ longstanding relationship.

Charles said that when his late mother opened a new session of Canada’s parliament in 1957, the Second World War remained a fresh, painful memory, and the Cold War was intensifying.

“Freedom and democracy were under threat,” he said. “Today, Canada faces another critical moment. Democracy, pluralism, the rule of law, self-determination, and freedom are values which Canadians hold dear, and ones which the government is determined to protect.”

The strong implication being that Carney was elected to protect these values in the face of an aggressive threat from Trump’s America.

He warned: “The system of open global trade that, while not perfect, has helped to deliver prosperity for Canadians for decades, is changing. We must be clear-eyed: the world is a more dangerous and uncertain place than at any point since the Second World War. Canada is facing challenges that are unprecedented in our lifetimes.”

His Government’s pro-immigration, diversity, nature, and green energy programme of policies sets out clear blue water from its southern neighbour under Trump.

But it was also hailed by royal watchers and political observers as a triumph of diplomatic language that achieved the monarch’s aim of standing up for Canada amid its newfound tensions with the United States while seeking to stop short of torpedoing Britain’s efforts to tread more softly with Trump.

Royal sources suggested Canada, too, was keen to move forward diplomatically with the US after earlier bust-ups with Trump. At times, aides have suggested that the King would never do or say anything that went against British policy.

However, members of the Royal Family do have some constitutional latitude behind the scenes to act independently of the UK Government.

In the 1980s, for example, Queen Elizabeth sided with Canada’s then-prime minister Brian Mulroney and other Commonwealth leaders to throw her support privately behind efforts to use economic sanctions to try to end apartheid in South Africa, despite opposition from her then-British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and the US president Ronald Reagan.

In spite of successive British government’s hostility towards Communist Cuba, in 2016 Prince Harry found himself in St Vincent and the Grenadines as a member of that country’s Royal Family paying respects during a minute’s silence to Fidel Castro, a strong ally of the country, who had just died.

Trump will have known that the King’s speech was essentially written by Carney’s government but often that does not diminish the soft power of the message coming from the monarch.

Less can often mean more when it comes to the Royal Family. One short phrase is all it takes.

In a 61-word statement on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II in March 2021, Buckingham Palace acknowledged Prince Harry and Meghan’s complaints in an Oprah Winfrey television interview, expressed the family’s love for them and challenged their allegations of unconscious racism inside the monarchy with one withering put down – “while recollections may vary”.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla board their plane at Ottawa Airport at the end of the royal two-day visit to Canada (Photo: Ian Vogler/Daily Mirror/PA Wire)

In 2014, the then Queen achieved arguably even more after intervening successfully in the Scottish independence referendum campaign at the urging of David Cameron and his ministers at a time when the SNP appeared to be surging in the polls. With palace officials ensuring she was overheard by reporters, she told a well-wisher outside Crathie church near Balmoral: “I hope people will think very carefully about the future”. The SNP surge quickly fell away.

Three years earlier, she set the seal on the peace process across the Irish Sea with a speech at Dublin Castle during a momentous state visit to Ireland. After speaking in Gaelic to the delight of her hosts, she alluded to the assassination in 1979 of Prince Philip’s uncle, Lord Mountbatten, and acknowledged the pain of all who had suffered loss in the Troubles, expressing her regret. “These events have touched us all, many of us personally, and are a painful legacy. We can never forget those who have died or been injured or their families,” she said.

The King’s speech today may come to be compared with some of those and it may increase his popularity in Canada.

Trump’s aggressive assertions that the country should become the US’s 51st state have led to a surge in Canadian nationalism and a consequent rallying around the monarchy. A poll at the weekend showed that more Canadians – 45 per cent to 39 per cent – now support remaining a constitutional monarchy. That is a complete turnaround from the position when Charles acceded to the throne in 2022 and, interestingly, the Pollara poll suggests that supporters of the centre-left Liberal Party are now more in favour of the monarchy than Conservative voters.