Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK: what’s on the agenda?

1. Tuesday

Trump arrives with his wife, Melania, on Air Force One to be greeted by the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, along with Warren Stephens, the US ambassador to the UK, and Viscount Hood, the king’s lord-in-waiting.

The US president will then go to Windsor Castle, where he will spend the night. There are no public events planned for Tuesday, and Trump will not spend time in London.

Despite the desire to keep the president away from a largely hostile British public, protesters are planning to greet his arrival at Windsor with a demonstration on the local high street.

2. Wednesday

The president and first lady will be formally greeted at Windsor by a royal salute fired simultaneously from the east lawn of Windsor Castle and the Tower of London.

They will then be taken by carriage through the Windsor estate with King Charles, Queen Camilla, Prince William and Princess Catherine. Their route will be lined by members of the armed forces, with three military bands from the Royal Marines, the army and the RAF.

The group will be greeted on arrival by a guard of honour. They will have lunch in the state dining room, after which the royals will take the Trumps on a tour of the royal collection. The president and first lady will then visit St George’s Chapel to lay a wreath on the tomb of Queen Elizabeth II. While there they will be given a tour of the chapel and a performance by the chapel choir.

Trump’s first event with Starmer will come on Wednesday afternoon, when the prime minister and his wife join the group to watch the beating the retreat military ceremony.

If the weather is good, the president will be given a flypast by the Red Arrows alongside British and American F-35 jets. That evening will see arguably the biggest event in the state visit: the traditional white-tie banquet in Windsor Castle at which the king and Trump will give speeches.

3. Thursday

Trump will leave Windsor and travel to the prime minister’s country retreat of Chequers, where he will be greeted by Starmer, a guard of honour and a band of bagpipers.

The prime minister will lead his counterpart on a tour of the Winston Churchill archives before they sit down for their official bilateral meeting, after which they will hold a reception with business leaders including representatives from GSK, Microsoft and Rolls-Royce.

The pair will have lunch together before hosting a joint press conference. Melania Trump will stay at Windsor Castle, where the queen will give her a tour of Queen Mary’s doll’s house and the royal library. Later she will travel to Chequers to reunite with her husband before they fly back to the US.

4. Issue one: Investment

Starmer is hoping the visit will be dominated by news of new investment deals between the two countries.

Already, the UK has announced a nuclear power deal that will see theUK and US accept each other’s safety assessments when it comes to small modular reactors. Small nuclear power plants are often cited as the way to supply huge amounts of energy needed to power artificial intelligence and advanced datacentres, and officials say the joint recognition agreement will help speed up their deployment.

Starmer and Trump are also due to make announcements on technology and financial services. The technology deal is expected to cover investment in AI, supercomputers and quantum computing.

However, nothing has been said in recent days about tariffs, which until recently had been top of the UK agenda for the US relationship. In May, the president and prime minister announced a trade deal that was supposed to reduce tariffs on steel from 25% to 0%, but the cut has still to be implemented amid concern from Washington about the source of Britain’s raw material imports.

5. Issue two: Ukraine

European leaders were delighted by comments from Trump over the weekend when he called Russia “the aggressor” in its war against Ukraine for the first time. A week earlier, he had talked about hitting Moscow with further sanctions after Russia launched its heaviest aerial bombardment on Ukraine since the war began.

In between those two statements, however, Trump issued a social media statement that deeply worried his fellow Nato members. In his post he laid blame for the war at the feet of his predecessor, Joe Biden, and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and urged European allies to levy tariffs of up to 100% on China and India.

Starmer will be hoping to use the trip to turn Trump’s focus once more to Vladimir Putin. European leaders have warned the US president that the Russian leader is not serious about striking a peace agreement, as part of a strategy to harden his stance towards Moscow.

6. Issue three: Gaza

Britain is preparing to join France and other countries in recognising Palestinian statehood at the UN general assembly in New York later this month, much to the irritation of Washington.

Trump said recently that recognition would amount to “rewarding Hamas”. Britain would prefer to neutralise the issue, and will be trying to persuade the US president not to retaliate in any way.

7. Issue four: Migration and free speech

British officials are dreading what happens if the president starts talking about migration and the rise of Reform UK, especially after the far-right rally last weekend which attracted an estimated 110,000 people.

The American right has in recent months portrayed Starmer’s government as leading an authoritarian crackdown on free speech, highlighting issues such as the recent arrest of the writer Graham Linehan and the imprisonment of Lucy Connolly.

Much of this has been fomented by Elon Musk on his social media platform X. Luckily for Starmer, Trump has now fallen out with Musk, potentially making him less likely to repeat his former ally’s talking points.

8. Issue five: Jeffrey Epstein

One of the reasons some in the British government were pushing for the dismissal of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador last week was that they did not want to let the state visit become overshadowed by a questions about Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted child sex offender.

Like Mandelson, Trump has been dogged by controversy about his previous friendship with Epstein, with even the president’s loyal supporters now calling for the full release of FBI files into the late financier.

When Starmer, Trump and King Charles meet, it will unite three world leaders who are desperate not to talk about Epstein, given the king’s brother Prince Andrew also had a well-publicised relationship with him.