The Guardian view on King Charles’s state visit: a regal exercise in damage limitation | Editorial

The monarch must do his best to wrest some diplomatic advantage from an ill-timed trip, which Donald Trump will treat as a personal tribute When King Charles’s mother became the first British monarch to address the United States Congress in 1991, she spoke in the aftermath of the US-led response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, in which more than 50,000 UK troops participated. Queen Elizabeth II used the occasion to celebrate the role of the transatlantic alliance in upholding the rule of international law: “Some people believe that power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” she told her Capitol Hill audience. “So it can, but history shows that it never grows well nor for very long.” Different monarch, different times and a very different America. As the king embarks on a four‑day state visit to the United States, a foiled assault by a gunman believed to be targeting members of the Trump administration illustrated the extent to which political violence has become endemic in a deeply polarised country. Globally, Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran (and prior to that the abduction by US special forces of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro) underlines