The first visit from a reigning monarch since 2007 could ease tensions – and tariffs on our car trade
Nervousness surrounds King Charles’ visit to the US this week. Donald Trump has been lashing out at the UK in recent weeks amid our refusal to back his war against Iran, and that puts our tariff deals at risk.
A visit from our reigning monarch, the first since 2007, is likely to mollify the easily flatterable president.
But how about a nice little present on top? The UK’s luxury car industry is the world’s finest, so what better to persuade him to honour or even improve our 10% automotive tariff deal than one of its products? This gift would need to be carefully thought through, though.
Trump isn’t a known petrolhead and no one brand would be keen to be associated with a president whose global ratings are currently in the toilet. Better that Bentley, Range Rover, Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce collaborate on a bespoke model for him. The Trump 45-47 Brougham Commander, perhaps – his very own car and brand.
This would take a lot of time and money, obviously, but dropping the tariff from 10% to 5%, say, would be worth around £250 million to the UK industry, so a few million quid’s worth of car could be money well spent.
Strongmen heads of state have long coveted unique cars and car makers have been happy to supply that need. For example, Russian president Vladimir Putin steered the creation of the Aurus brand, maker of the Senat limo he uses for state occasions. It was launched in 2018 to much fanfare in Moscow with the help of the state automotive research organisation NAMI and car manufacturer Sollers, then a partner of Ford.
Aurus’s model names project an image of power and strength. After the Senat came the Komendant SUV, then the Arsenal MPV (not a joke), although this now looks to have been shelved, sadly.
The Sultan of Brunei, meanwhile, largely kept Bentley afloat in its malaise years before Volkswagen ownership with a slew of one-off commissions, including an early SUV.
There is risk here. With his name on the bonnet, Trump might not register his car as British and absent-mindedly assign credit to Cadillac, for example. There’s also the threat of political blowback from gifting a multimillion-pound V12 car (because of course it needs a petrol engine) to a president who has caused global petrol prices to spike so high.
Maybe we should just let the king do his thing.
