King Charles III addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, where he marked the 250th anniversary of American independence and reaffirmed the “special relationship” between the U.K. and U.S. amid bilateral and global tensions.
Charles, who was within the U.S. for a four-day state visit, is just the second British monarch to deal with Congress after his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, delivered an analogous speech in 1991.
Here’s a full transcript of the King’s speech:
Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, members of Congress, representatives of the American people across all states, territories, cities and communities.
I would love, if I’ll, to take this chance to specific my particular gratitude to you all for the nice honour of addressing this joint meeting of Congress, and on behalf of the Queen and myself, to thank the American people for welcoming us to the USA to mark this semi-quincentennial yr of the Declaration of Independence.
And for all of that point, our destinies as nations have been interlinked. As Oscar Wilde said, we’ve got really all the pieces in common with America nowadays, except, after all, language.
We meet in times of great uncertainty, in times of conflict, from Europe to the Middle East, which pose immense challenges for the international community and whose impact is felt in communities the length and breadth of our own countries.
We meet too within the aftermath of the incident not removed from this great constructing, that sought to harm the leadership of your nation and to foment wider fear and discord.
Let me say, with unshakeable resolve, such acts of violence won’t ever succeed.
Whatever our differences, whatever disagreements we can have, we stand united in our commitment to uphold democracy, to guard all our people from harm, and to salute the courage of those that each day risk their lives within the service of our countries.
Standing here today, it is difficult to not feel the load of history on my shoulder, because the trendy relationship between our two nations and our own peoples spans not merely 250 years, but over 4 centuries.
It’s extraordinary to think that I’m the nineteenth in our line of sovereigns to check with each day attention the affairs of America. So I come here today with the best respect for the USA Congress, this citadel of democracy created to represent the voice of all American people, to advance sacred rights and freedoms.
Speaking on this renowned chamber of debate and deliberation, I cannot help but consider my late mother, Queen Elizabeth, who in 1991 was also afforded this sacred honour and similarly spoke under the watchful eye of the Statue of Freedom above us.
Today, I’m here on this great occasion within the lifetime of our nations to specific the best regard and friendship of the British people to the people of the USA.
Now, as chances are you’ll know, once I addressed my very own parliament at Westminster, we still follow an age-old tradition and take a member of Parliament hostage, holding her or him at Buckingham Palace until I’m safely returned. Lately we take care of our guest fairly well, to the purpose that they often are not looking for to depart.
I don’t know, Mr. Speaker, if there are any volunteers for that role here today.
As I look back across the centuries, Mr. Speaker, there emerged certain patterns, certain self-evident truths from which we will learn and draw mutual strength. With the spirit of 1776 in our minds, we will perhaps agree that we don’t at all times agree, at the very least in the primary instance.
Indeed, the very principle on which your Congress was founded, “no taxation without representation,” was directly a fundamental disagreement between us and at the identical time, a shared democratic value which you inherited from us.
Ours is a partnership born out of dispute, but no less strong for it. So perhaps in this instance, we will discern that our nations are, the truth is, instinctively like-minded, a product of the common democratic, legal and social traditions wherein our governance is rooted to today.
Drawing on these values and traditions repeatedly, our two countries have at all times found ways to return together. And by Jove, Mr. Speaker, when we’ve got found that technique to agree, what great change is caused — not only for the advantage of our peoples, but of all peoples.
This, I consider, is the special ingredient in our relationship. As President Trump himself observed during his state visit to Britain last autumn, the bond of kinship and identity between America and the UK is priceless and everlasting. It’s irreplaceable and unbreakable.
Mr. Speaker, that is in no way my first visit to Washington, D.C., the capital of this great republic. It’s, the truth is, my twentieth visit to the USA, and my first as King and head of the Commonwealth.
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This can be a city which symbolizes a period in our shared history, or what Charles Dickens might need called A Tale of Two Georges: the primary president, George Washington, and my five times great-grandfather, King George III.
King George, as you already know, never set foot in America. And please rest assured, ladies and gentlemen, I’m not here as a part of some cunning rearguard motion.
The Founding Fathers were daring and imaginative rebels with a cause. Two-hundred-and-fifty years ago — or, as we are saying in the UK, just the opposite day — they declared independence by balancing contending forces and drawing strength into diversity.
They united 13 disparate colonies to forge a nation on the revolutionary idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They carried with them and carried forward the nice inheritance of the British Enlightenment, in addition to the ideals which had a good deeper history in English common law and Magna Carta.
These roots run deep, they usually are still vital.
Our Declaration of Rights of 1689 was not only the inspiration of our constitutional monarchy, but additionally provided the source of so lots of the principles reiterated, often verbatim, within the American Bill of Rights of 1791.
And people roots go even further back in history. The U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society has calculated that Magna Carta is cited in at the very least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789, not least as the inspiration of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances.
That is the rationale why there stands a stone by the River Thames at Runnymede, where Magna Carta was signed within the yr 1215. This stone records that an acre of that ancient and historic site was given to the USA of America by the people of the UK to symbolize our shared resolve in support of liberty and in memory of President John F. Kennedy.
Distinguished members of the 119th Congress, it’s here in these very halls that this spirit of liberty and the promise of America’s founders is present in every session and each vote solid not by the desire of 1, but by the deliberation of many, representing the living mosaic of the USA in each of our countries.
It’s the actual fact of our vibrant, diverse and free societies that provides us our collective strength, including to support victims of a number of the ills that so tragically exist in each our societies today.
And Mr. Speaker, for a lot of here and for myself, the Christian faith is a firm anchor and each day inspiration that guides us not only personally, but together as members of our community. Having devoted a big a part of my life to interfaith relationships and greater understanding, it’s that faith within the triumph of sunshine over darkness which I even have found confirmed countless times.
Through it, I’m inspired by the profound respect that develops as people of various faiths grow of their understanding of one another. It’s why it’s my hope, my prayer, that in these turbulent times, working together and with our international partners, we will stem the beating of ploughshares into swords.
I’m mindful that we’re still within the season of Easter, the season that the majority strengthens my hope. It’s why I consider with all my heart that the essence of our two nations is a generosity of spirit and an obligation to foster compassion, to advertise peace, to deepen mutual understanding, and to value all people of all faiths and of none.
The alliance that our two nations have built over the centuries, and for which we’re profoundly grateful to the American people, is actually unique, and that alliance is a component of what Henry Kissinger described as Kennedy’s soaring vision of an Atlantic partnership based on twin pillars: Europe and America.
That partnership, I consider, Mr. Speaker, is more vital today than it has ever been.
The primary reigning British sovereign to set foot in America was my grandfather, King George VI. He visited in 1939 with my beloved grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. The forces of fascism in Europe were on the march, and a few time before, the USA had joined us within the defence of freedom. Our shared values prevailed.
Today we discover ourselves in a brand new era, but those values remain. It’s an era that’s in some ways more volatile and more dangerous than the world to which my late mother spoke on this chamber in 1991.
The challenges we face are too great for anyone nation to bear alone. But on this unpredictable environment, our alliance cannot rest on past achievements or assume that foundational principles simply endure.
As my prime minister said last month, ours is an indispensable partnership. We must not disregard all the pieces that has sustained us for the last 80 years. As an alternative, we must construct on it.
Renewal today starts with security. The UK recognizes that the threats we face demand a metamorphosis in British defence.
That’s the reason our country, to be able to be fit for the long run, has committed to the most important sustained increase in defence spending because the Cold War — during a part of which, over 50 years ago, I served with immense pride within the Royal Navy, following within the naval footsteps of my father Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, my grandfather King George VI, my great uncle Lord Mountbatten, and my great grandfather King George V.
This yr, after all, also marks the twenty fifth anniversary of 9/11. This atrocity was a defining moment for America, and your pain and shock were felt across the whole world. During my visit to Recent York, my wife and I’ll again pay our respects to the victims, the families, and the bravery shown within the face of terrible loss.
We stood with you then, and we stand with you now in solemn remembrance of a day that shall never be forgotten.
Within the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when NATO invoked Article Five for the primary time, and the United Nations Security Council was united within the face of terror, we answered the decision together, as our people have done so for greater than a century, shoulder to shoulder through two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan, and moments which are defined our shared security.
Today, Mr. Speaker, that very same unyielding resolve is required for the defence of Ukraine and her most courageous people. It is required to be able to secure a really just and lasting peace.
From the depths of the Atlantic to the disastrously melting ice caps of the Arctic, the commitment and expertise of the USA Armed Forces and its allies lie at the center of NATO — pledged to one another’s defence, protecting our residents and interests, keeping North Americans and Europeans secure from our common adversaries.
Our defence, intelligence and security ties are hardwired together through relationships measured not in years, but in many years.
Today, 1000’s of U.S. service personnel, defence officials and their families are stationed in the UK, as British personnel serve with equal pride across 30 American states. We’re constructing F-35s together, and we’ve got agreed on probably the most ambitious submarine program in history, AUKUS. And we’re doing it in partnership with Australia, a rustic of which I’m also immensely proud to function sovereign.
We don’t embark on these remarkable endeavours together out of sentiment. We achieve this because they construct greater shared resilience for the long run, so making our residents safer for generations to return.
Our common ideals weren’t only crucial for liberty and equality, also they are the inspiration of our shared prosperity. The rule of law, the knowledge of stable and accessible rules, an independent judiciary, resolving disputes and delivering impartial justice: these features created the conditions for hundreds of years of unmatched economic growth in our two countries.
Because of this our governments are concluding recent economic and technology agreements to write down the subsequent chapter of our joint prosperity, and make sure that British and American ingenuity continues to steer the world. Our nations are combining talent and resources within the technologies of tomorrow. Our recent partnerships in nuclear fusion and quantum computing, and in AI and drug discovery, holding the promise of saving countless lives.
More broadly, we have a good time the $430 billion in annual trade that continues to grow. The $1.7 trillion in mutual investment that fuels that innovation, and the tens of millions of jobs on either side of the Atlantic, supported across each economies.
These are strong foundations on which to proceed to construct for generations yet unborn. Our ties in education, research and cultural exchange empower residents and future leaders of each countries. The Marshall Scholarship, named after the nice General George Marshall and the association of which I’m so proud to be patron, are emblematic of the connection between our two countries. Since its founding, greater than 2,300 scholarships have been awarded, opening doors for Americans from all walks of life to check at the UK’s leading universities.
In order we glance toward the subsequent 250 years, we must also reflect on our shared responsibility to safeguard nature, our most precious and irreplaceable asset.
For millennia, millennia before our nations existed, before any border drawn, the mountains of Scotland and Appalachia were one. A single continuous range forged in the traditional collision of continents.
The natural wonders of the USA of America are indeed a novel asset, and generations of Americans have risen to this calling. Indigenous, political and civic leaders, people in rural communities and cities alike, have all helped to guard and nurture what President Theodore Roosevelt called the “glorious heritage” of this land’s extraordinary natural splendour, on which a lot of its prosperity has at all times depended.
Yet, whilst we have a good time the wonder that surrounds us, our generation must resolve address the collapse of critical natural systems, which threatens excess of the harmony and essential diversity of nature. We ignore at our peril the incontrovertible fact that these natural systems — in other words, nature’s own economy — provide the inspiration for our prosperity and our national security.
The story of the UK and the USA is, at its heart, a story of reconciliation, renewal, and noteworthy partnership. From the bitter divisions of 250 years ago, we forged a friendship that has grown into one of the consequential alliances in human history.
I pray with all my heart that our alliance will proceed to defend our shared values with our partners in Europe and the Commonwealth and the world over, and that we ignore the clarion calls to turn into ever more inward looking.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, America’s words carry weight and meaning, as they’ve since independence. The actions of this great nation matter much more.
President Lincoln understood this so well along with his reflection within the magisterial Gettysburg Address, that the world may little note what we are saying, but will always remember what we do.
And so to the USA of America, in your 250th birthday, let our two countries rededicate ourselves to one another within the selfless service of our peoples and of all of the peoples of the world.
God bless the USA and God bless the UK.