Further difficulties beckon.

Just prior to this week’s state visit by King Charles III, we learned that the Trump administration is considering withdrawing diplomatic recognition of the U.K.’s Falkland Islands territory. On the flip side of the coin, the U.K. has been alienated by Trump’s threats to NATO, his excessive deference to Russia, and his often-unnecessarily offensive rhetoric. British public opinion has soured on America.

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Fortunately, shared action from both sides of the Atlantic can fix these breaks in the alliance. Charles’s state visit offers an excellent starting point in that pursuit. Although Trump and Charles have very different personalities and almost certainly do not like each other on a personal level, they have shown excellent leadership this week.

Trump spoke eloquently on Tuesday of a relationship fortified by the struggle against tyranny during World War II. As he put it, “In the centuries since we won our independence, Americans have had no closer friends than the British.” Trump observed, “We share that same root, we speak the same language, we hold the same values, and together, our warriors have defended the same extraordinary civilization under twin banners of red, white, and blue.”

This reference to “warriors” who “have defended the same extraordinary civilization” was well-chosen by Trump. It is a clear olive branch to cool British offense over Trump’s suggestion earlier this year that its soldiers had not fought courageously alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan. The British lost the population equivalent of 2,000 soldiers in that war. Denmark, which Trump has similarly offended by his threats to seize its Greenland territory, lost the equivalent of 2,100 troops in Afghanistan.

Charles reciprocated Trump’s warmth in his address to Congress on Wednesday.

Channeling the humor and grace of WWII-era Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the king described how “the bond of kinship and identity between America and the United Kingdom is priceless and eternal.” Charles added that the two nations’ “defense, intelligence, and security ties are hardwired together through relationships measured not in years, but in decades.”

Again, well said. It is hard to overstate how close the U.S.-U.K. intelligence relationship actually is. Indeed, at the National Security Agency-Government Communications Headquarters signals intelligence service level, it is near symbiotic. Trump can claim credit for his record here. The Washington Examiner is aware of, but withholding details on, an intelligence operation of extraordinary value to the U.K. that this president authorized. But the bottom line is that no other nation, including Israel, has such a mutually beneficial security relationship with the U.S.

Trump and Charles’s physical reinforcement of this special friendship has underlined how it transcends the disagreements of any one moment. Still, addressing the challenges in this partnership will require more than this week’s pomp and circumstance.

For a start, Starmer must recognize that he has done significant damage by his response to the war in Iran. It is one thing that Starmer did not want to deploy U.K. forces into this conflict. It is another thing altogether that he put so many restrictions on the use of what are de facto U.S. air bases on U.K. territory. U.S. requests for base access were subject to unacceptable delays and extensive restrictions. This might be bad coming from, as it did during this war, a poor ally such as Spain. But it is incompatible with the special relationship.

It is also hypocritical of Starmer. After all, Trump showed potent support for the U.K.’s defense by deploying nuclear gravity bombs to one of these bases in 2025. Going forward, the U.K. needs to assure the U.S. that it will be able to access these bases as needed. Or make clear that it won’t be able to, so that the U.S. can relocate its capabilities.

Starmer’s dithering in deploying a single U.K. warship to counter Iranian drone and missile attacks has further frustrated the U.S. The HMS Dragon took more than a week to reach deployment readiness and then broke down. Starmer has also appeased deliberate Iranian attacks on energy supplies that are crucial to the U.K. economy. This underlines another U.S. concern.

Namely, the U.K.’s grossly inadequate defense spending. While NATO allies such as the Baltic States, Poland, and, finally, Germany are pumping investment into their militaries, Starmer is doing as little as possible. The U.K. now faces a $38 billion defense budget deficit and is pledging to reach 3% of GDP defense spending only between 2029 and 2034. By contrast, Germany is expected to reach 3% of GDP in spending by 2029 and do so from a lower starting point.

Trump should thus be clear that, while he remains committed to NATO and British security, the special relationship depends on a greater show of British commitment to our military alliance. Starmer can find the necessary funds for defense by tacking a sickle to his grossly bloated welfare budget.

Change is also needed from Trump.

While he quickly corrected himself, the president’s ignorant dismissal of U.K. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan caused great offense. Trump’s threats to Greenland were equally foolish, while also unbound from the Constitution. These actions depleted the trust in national sovereignty that forms the linchpin of the trans-Atlantic partnership and, supposedly, Trump’s own worldview. They must not be repeated or replicated. And rather than fixating on relations through the prism of a New York City real estate deal, Trump should recognize that NATO serves American prosperity, security, and influence. In contrast, Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a determined American enemy that offers no credible economic potential, antithetical values, and whose intelligence officers like to chuck chemical weapons across the English countryside and cause great harm to American patriots.

This is not to argue that Trump should abandon his pressure on NATO allies, including the U.K., to spend more on defense. Only Trump was able to get NATO to take burden sharing seriously, and only he can build on that momentum. As I noted recently, “it was not until Trump returned to office that most NATO allies finally began to invest in defense spending. It is a disgrace that three years of the worst land war in Europe since 1945 didn’t move that needle.”

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Trump would also assist the special relationship by taking the occasional pause before lashing out on social media. These posts may please the president and even sometimes educate a British establishment that prefers unspoken politeness over uncomfortable truths. But Trump’s fire-from-the-hip rhetoric also alienates the British population, reducing the political space for a British government to take political risks to support the U.S. in a future crisis. Assuming its funding is increased, for example, the Royal Navy’s air defense destroyers and attack submarines could provide outsize value in any future war with China.

So, yes, this week offered a good start on charting a better course. But only that. The harder work of policy changes and restoring trust must now follow.