King Charles III’s first state visit to the United States as monarch got off to a rocky start when workers mistakenly decorated a stretch of Washington streets with Australian flags instead of British ones.
The blunder occurred on Friday, April 25, 2026, just days before the king’s arrival for a four-day visit beginning April 27. Among more than 230 banners hung along 17th Street NW near the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, 15 displayed the Australian flag rather than the Union Jack. Photographs of the mix-up quickly circulated on social media, prompting swift action from the D.C. Department of Transportation to remove the incorrect flags.
“We posted those flags, but it was quickly rectified, and we were able to remove them,” a department official told The Washington Examiner.
The confusion likely arose because Australia’s flag incorporates the Union Jack in its upper-left corner, set against a deep blue field with six white stars. The agency stores and labels flags for such occasions and is now investigating how the error happened. Freelance reporter Andrew Leyden captured images of local government workers swapping out the Australian banners for proper British flags along the same road.
Officials emphasized the mistake was limited to one corridor, with British flags already correctly displayed on other ceremonial routes throughout the capital.
Social media users, particularly Australians, responded with amusement to the gaffe. Some noted a technical justification existed: Charles serves as Australia’s head of state as well, though the role is mostly ceremonial.
The visit carries enormous diplomatic weight, marking the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence — a document that severed ties with Charles’s ancestors. Charles and Queen Camilla arrived on April 27 for what many consider the most significant trip of his reign to date.
President Trump and first lady hosted a state dinner in the East Room on Monday evening, April 27. Charles met privately with the president at the White House and addressed a joint meeting of Congress — only the second British monarch to do so, following Queen Elizabeth II in 1991. The royal couple’s itinerary also includes stops in New York, where they will attend a ceremony at the September 11 memorial ahead of the 25th anniversary of the attacks, followed by Virginia. Charles will then continue to Bermuda, a British overseas territory where he also serves as head of state.
Charles and Camilla previously visited Washington, D.C., together in 2015, when, as Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, they met President Obama at the White House.
The visit unfolds against a backdrop of deteriorating U.S.-British relations, now at their lowest point in 70 years. Trade threats from President Trump and friction over the war in Iran have strained ties. Last month, the President told Britain to “go get your own oil” from the Strait of Hormuz. He has previously dismissed Prime Minister Keir Starmer as “not Winston Churchill” and mocked Britain’s aircraft carriers as “toys.”
Trump’s personal feelings toward the king, however, remain warm. Asked by the BBC whether the visit could help repair ties, 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.”
The warmth is, in part, reciprocal stagecraft. During Trump’s own state visit to the U.K. in September 2025, Charles hosted him at 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 designed to repair governmental acrimony but to demonstrate something deeper. “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 sentiment toward the visit remains negative. A YouGov poll published in late March found that 49 percent of Britons opposed the trip, while just 33 percent said it should go ahead. 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.
