'I know the King - he needed to meet President Zelensky today'

People sometimes wonder exactly what the term “soft power“ means. Well, the meeting between the king and President Zelensky was a definition of that power.

It carried a powerful punch that will have been felt on both sides of the Atlantic. The monarch is and must be above politics. But he also has to be the ultimate diplomat.

Like his mother before him, King Charles has a wealth of international experience. As Prince of Wales, he sometimes pushed the boundaries of his position: for example, he twice refused to attend state banquets for Chinese leaders.

But now he is doing exactly what he must—complying with a Downing Street request for an unprecedented second state visit for President Trump and extending a very public hand of friendship to the beleaguered Ukrainian president.

There’s no doubt that this is a very delicate tightrope for the King to walk, and he may feel the need to fidget with his cufflinks even more compulsively as he conducts President Trump around Windsor Castle with all the pomp and pageantry that a state visit entails.

He was undoubtedly far more at ease with President Zelensky. This, though, is the King‘s job: to represent the country as head of state in good times and bad, and to do the bidding of his government – whichever party is in office.

Soft power can be invaluable, and the American President is more susceptible than most to all the flummery and flattery that the invitation flourished by the Prime Minister at the White House offers.

But this is the trickiest diplomatic situation that King Charles has yet had to deal with.

Knowing the man a little, I think he is absolutely up to the task and I don’t think Buckingham Palace would want to withdraw a state visit invitation – especially when it was extended so publicly.

Delaying it, as has been suggested by some, would be equally offensive to President Trump, a man who is known to hold grudges for a very long time, and to exact payback.

After meeting Sir Keir Starmer in Washington, President Trump said he was doing well and “earning his money”. Perhaps the same could be said of King Charles as he fine-tunes his tightrope walking skills.