In the court of Trump, our royal family could be key

Editorial: The government is right to recruit the King and the Prince of Wales in a bid to ease relations with Donald Trump

Peter Mandelson’s appointment as British ambassador to Washington seems to have gone down badly with the one person who was supposed to be impressed by it. If Donald Trump, the United States president-elect, was flattered by the choice of a political and trade heavyweight as emissary, he had a funny way of showing it.

One of Mr Trump’s associates said it was “sad” to “replace a professional, universally respected ambassador”, namely Karen Pierce, and that Lord Mandelson “should stay home”. The Independent has established that Mr Trump “gave permission for Chris La Civita”, his recent campaign coordinator, to make that statement.

We have also reported that Mr Trump’s transition team had asked the British government not to appoint Lord Mandelson – “and they appointed him anyway”.

This is a bad start for Lord Mandelson, who had seemed well qualified for a challenging post. As a former EU trade commissioner, the Labour peer has deep experience in trade negotiations at the highest level. He also possesses great political skills and, while his personality and politics are very different from Mr Trump’s, it seemed reasonable to assume that he would be able to work with the fissile material about to be installed in the White House.

A mere 24 minutes after the official announcement on Friday of Lord Mandelson’s appointment, however, Mr La Civita’s comment prompted the emergency activation in 10 Downing Street of a back-up plan.

Everyone knows, because Mr Trump has told the world, that the president-elect admires and respects the British royal family, so the King and the Prince of Wales are to be “front and centre” of the effort to build a good relationship with the incoming president.

When Prince William met Mr Trump this month, after the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, the president-elect described him as a “good-looking guy”. Mr Trump said: “He looked really, very handsome last night. Some people look better in person. He looked great. He looked really nice, and I told him that.”

A diplomat has told The Independent that the royal family is “the best way to his heart”.

We had better hope so because there is a lot of work to do in persuading Mr Trump not to damage British interests. The most important issue is the threat of tariffs on British exports to the US. For all that reasonable people assume that this is mostly bluster aimed at the EU and China, the danger to British prosperity is real. In his first presidential term, Mr Trump seemed to be, in practice, aware that tariffs harm American consumers too by putting up prices, but this is no guarantee that good sense will prevail this time.

It is also alarming that Elon Musk, who seems to have installed himself as “First Friend” to the president-elect, has engaged in a personal feud with our prime minister on the social media platform, X, that he owns. We trust in the robust independence of British voters and expect them to resent and resist any attempts by outsiders to interfere in our politics, but it will undoubtedly make it harder for the British government to gain a hearing in Mr Trump’s counsels.

There, perhaps, is where the royal family could make a difference. If the King and the Prince of Wales can defend British interests at the court of Mr Trump, we should be grateful to them.