US President Donald Trump will make a state visit to Britain June 3-5, just ahead of D-Day commemorations in France, officials said on Tuesday, as campaigners announced large-scale protests against him.
Trump will be the guest of Queen Elizabeth II and will also hold talks with Prime Minister Theresa May during the trip.
“We do more together than any two nations in the world and we are both safer and more prosperous because of our cooperation,” May said in a statement on the visit.
She said it would be “an opportunity to strengthen our already close relationship in areas such as trade, investment, security and defence, and to discuss how we can build on these ties in the years ahead.”
The pomp associated with state visits will prove particularly controversial in Britain, where House of Commons Speaker John Bercow has already said he does not want the US president to address parliament.
May invited Trump for a state visit in January 2017 when she went to Washington just days after he took office in what was widely seen as an attempt to curry favor, particularly for post-Brexit trade ties.
An online petition to cancel Trump’s state visit reached 1.9 million signatures and that trip was delayed.
On the last day of his visit, June 5, Trump will attend a large military ceremony in Portsmouth in southern England, where ships left for the D-Day landings 75 years ago in the largest seaborne invasion in history.
Downing Street said in a statement that the event would be “one of the greatest British military spectacles in recent history” involving “26 iconic RAF aircraft and at least 11 Royal Navy vessels”.
Trump will then travel to Normandy on June 6 for the main D-Day commemorations, the statement said.
British anti-Trump campaign groups pledged to mobilize in “huge numbers” to protest against the visiting president.
When Trump last visited Britain in July 2018, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets.
Shaista Aziz from the Stop Trump coalition blamed Trump for a “politics of hate and bigotry” and said it was time for his critics to “stand up and be counted”.
Sabby Dhalu from the Stand Up To Trump group added: “All those that value peace and hope for a better world for the many must take to the streets and say clearly that Donald Trump is not welcome here”.
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