Crews installing banners along a Washington street ahead of King Charles III’s state visit accidentally hung Australian flags instead of British ones, creating an awkward diplomatic gaffe that spread quickly on social media before workers corrected the mistake.
The blunder occurred on Friday, April 25, 2026, when 15 Australian flags were placed among more than 230 banners on 17th Street NW near the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The D.C. Department of Transportation pulled down the incorrect flags within hours after photographs circulated online.
A department official told The Washington Examiner that “we posted those flags, but it was quickly rectified, and we were able to remove them.”
The mistake likely happened because Australia’s flag incorporates the Union Jack in its upper-left corner, set against a deep blue field with six white stars. Officials say flags are normally stored and labeled, and the agency is looking into what went wrong.
Freelance reporter Andrew Leyden posted photographs showing local government workers swapping the Australian banners for Union Jacks on the same street. Officials emphasized that the error affected only one corridor, and British flags had been properly displayed along other ceremonial routes.
Social media users, including Australians offering wry commentary, noted a technical justification: King Charles serves as Australia’s head of state too, though in a largely ceremonial role.
The king and Queen Camilla touched down in the capital on Monday, April 27, for a four-day state visit marking the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence—a delicate piece of diplomatic theater, given that the document announced the colonies’ break from his ancestors’ rule. It is Charles’ first state visit to America as king and is viewed as the most significant trip of his reign to date.
Charles held a private meeting with President Trump at the White House and addressed a joint meeting of Congress — only the second British monarch to do so, after Queen Elizabeth II in 1991. The president and first lady hosted a state dinner in the East Room on Monday evening, April 27. The royal couple will then head to New York for a ceremony at the September 11 memorial ahead of the attacks’ 25th anniversary, then move on to Virginia. Charles will finish the trip in Bermuda, a British overseas territory where he also serves as head of state.
Charles and Camilla previously visited Washington, D.C., together in 2015, meeting President Obama at the White House when they were still Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall.
The visit comes during a difficult stretch for U.S.-British relations. Tensions have reached their lowest level in 70 years over friction surrounding the Iran war and ongoing trade threats from President Trump. The President told Britain last month to “go get your own oil” from the Strait of Hormuz. He has also called Prime Minister Keir Starmer “not Winston Churchill” and derided Britain’s aircraft carriers as “toys.”
But Trump has expressed admiration for the king. When the BBC asked whether the visit could mend relations, the president said: “He’s fantastic. He’s a fantastic man. Absolutely, the answer is yes. I know him well. I’ve known him for years. He’s a brave man, and he’s a great man.”
During Trump’s state visit to the U.K. in September 2025, Charles reciprocated with a Windsor Castle banquet attended by tech CEOs, media magnate Rupert Murdoch, and other prominent figures, and invited the president to inspect the Guard of Honour.
Nigel Sheinwald, Britain’s ambassador to Washington from 2007 to 2012, told Reuters the trip was not meant to fix governmental disputes but to underscore something more fundamental. “Pretty much more than any other visit, this is about the long term. This is about the fundamentals of the relationship between our peoples, our countries.”
Back in Britain, public opinion has turned against the visit. A YouGov poll published in late March showed 49 percent of Britons opposed the trip, while just 33 percent supported it. The Liberal Democrats and the Greens have publicly called for the visit to be canceled, leaving Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as the only major party supportive of it.
The flags, at least, are now in order.
