King Charles III will open the Canadian Parliament next week in a historic ceremony against the backdrop of President ‘s threats to annex America’s northern neighbor.

Canada recognizes Charles, 76, as its king and during a two-day tour from May 26 to May 27 he will be the first British monarch to give the speech from the throne in the country’s legislature since in 1977. She did it twice, with the first being in 1957.

While he has visited 19 times before, this will be his first as head of state and comes at a politically charged time, following Trump’s talk about making the country the 51st state.

King Charles, Trump and Canada

Trump’s annexation talk might make a difficult playing field for Charles under normal circumstances, but it is particularly tricky because of the king’s divided loyalties.

He will always be king of Britain first and foremost, with the U.K. prime minister having unrivaled access to the royal family’s famous soft power diplomacy.

Even this very visit will likely have been arranged with the Royal Visits Committee at the U.K. Cabinet Office.

More important though, Britain and Canada currently have very different foreign policy goals.

While Canadian Prime Minister has been working to draw a line in the sand over sovereignty and tell Trump he must not cross it, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer went on a charm offensive with Trump, using the king as his secret weapon.

Starmer met Trump in the Oval Office earlier this year armed with an invitation from Charles to a historic second state visit, all part of efforts to pave the way for Britain to get a U.S. trade deal, which eventually was forthcoming.

Carney, though, has of the fact Canadians felt the power move undermined their own messaging with the White House.

He recently told Sky News: “I think, to be frank, they [Canadians] weren’t impressed by that gesture … given the circumstance. It was at a time when we were being quite clear, some of us were being quite clear, about the issues around sovereignty.”

The Monarchy and Canada

It all comes at a time when the British monarchy is not actually all that popular in Canada, despite a Trump bounce.

Polling in March by Research Co. found 31 percent of Canadian adults wanted to keep the monarchy while 40 percent wanted to abolish it.

That was a jump for royalists compared to a year earlier when 23 percent wanted to retain the king as head of state and 46 percent wanted to remove him, with Trump’s threats being cited by the pollster as the likely cause.

So the king will step into a country that the polls suggest would have removed him as head of state had a referendum been held in March but on the other hand with a new found unique role as protector.

In the—perhaps unlikely—event that Trump were to send the over the border to annex Canada by force, they would be infringing on a territory over which Charles is king.

And Trump does actually quite like Charles, or so he told Starmer in February when he described the king as “a wonderful leader and friend.”

The invitation to the State Opening of Parliament was in fact a deliberate one with Trump in mind, Carney told Sky: “All issues around Canada’s sovereignty have been accentuated by the president. So no, it’s not coincidental, but it is also a reaffirming moment for Canadians.”

Williams Brown is chief royal correspondent for Regalrumination.com, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly , at and read his stories on Regalrumination.com’s .

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