UK downgrades Trump’s visit after year of humiliations

The White House announced Thursday that Trump will finally make his first visit to the U.K. after a year of putting it off.

But there will be no pomp and circumstance when he arrives in Britain in July.

The trip will be a “working visit” with Prime Minister Theresa May — a “downgrade from the kind of ceremonial state visit that was initially offered,” The New York Times reported Thursday.

Trump was first invited to visit the U.K. in January 2017. At the time, May extended an invitation to Trump and Melania for a state visit from Queen Elizabeth II.

Trump reportedly had high hopes for the visit, expressing his desire to play golf with the Queen and requesting to ride with her in a gold-plated carriage.

But Trump’s caviar dreams didn’t come true. Instead, he spent the next year stumbling through a series of embarrassments and growing increasingly unpopular with the British public.

In February 2017, members of Parliament sent a petition to the government calling for Trump’s state visit to be canceled or downgraded. The petition, which garnered over 1.8 million signatures, argued that Trump “should not be invited to make an official State Visit because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.”

In June 2017, just as plans were being made for his first visit, Trump launched a Twitter attack on London Mayor Sadiq Khan, criticizing him for his handling of the London Bridge terrorist attack.

His tweets drew condemnation from British politicians across the political spectrum, resulting in calls to the British government to cancel his visit.

Tentative plans for Trump to visit the U.K. the next month were called off, and the visit was rescheduled for the fall.

But then in September, Trump used a bombing in London as an opportunity to promote his Muslim ban, prompting a new wave of backlash.

Two months later, Trump once again drew fierce condemnation from Britain when he retweeted a series of anti-Muslim videos from a British far-right political group.

Then in January, Trump canceled a planned trip to the U.S. embassy in London. While Trump claimed he had scrapped the trip because he was unhappy that the embassy was moving to a new location, British and American officials said it was more likely that he canceled the visit to avoid being embarrassed by widespread protests.

Unfortunately for Trump, those protesters haven’t gone away — nor have they called off their plans to protest his visit.

“We have got a great history in our city of protests,” London’s mayor said Wednesday. “I have no doubt that if he does come, there will be some people who want to express their views loudly and peacefully to the president.”

If Trump actually makes it to the U.K. this time, he won’t be greeted with a royal welcoming ceremony or a gold-plated carriage ride. Instead, he can expect to be greeted by a wall of people who don’t want him there.