What Donald Trump and Melania Gave the Queen — and the Royal Gifts She Gave in Return
Donald Trump and wife Melania Trump arrived in the U.K. on Monday for a controversial three-day state visit and they came bearing gifts.
According to the White House the president, 72, and first lady, 49, presented Queen Elizabeth with a Tiffany & Co. silver and silk poppy brooch with a custom, White House wood jewelry container placed inside a red leather box.
To the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, they gifted a personalized Air Force One jacket and a first-edition, signed autobiography by American general and pilot James Doolittle, I Could Never Be So Lucky Again. (Philip, 97, has retired from public life and did not attend any of the state visit events.)
The Queen, 93, had gifts of her own for the Trumps: For the president, she brought an abridged, crimson first edition of Winston Churchill’s The Second World War adorned with gold tooled embroidery along the outer cover, spine and inner cover, according to Buckingham Palace.
Related: Donald Trump Put His Hand on Queen Elizabeth’s Back at State Banquet — Did He Break Protocol?
The Queen gave Mrs. Trump a “specially commissioned silver box” with a “handcrafted enamel lid” featuring a royal blue center that was designed to match the ceiling of the Buckingham music room. Like the president’s gift, the box also has the gold EIIR cypher.
This week’s visit was not the first time gifts have been exchanged between the royal family and the Trumps. When the president made a working visit to the U.K. last summer, he brought a pewter horse for the Queen — though he failed to recognize the gift while touring some of the royal artwork on Monday.
Tim Knox, the Royal Collection’s director, said later that the president did not recall the horse’s history at first.
“We just asked him whether he recognized it and he said no but the first lady did recognize it, which is rather nice,” Knox recalled to reporters.
“One horse is very much like another,” Knox explained. “[Mrs. Trump] recognized it. She said, ‘Oh yeah, yeah, this is one of ours.’ “
Related: Donald Trump Didn’t Recognize the Gift He Brought Queen Elizabeth on Last Year’s U.K. Visit
President Trump’s state visit has mixed pageantry and political engagements. He and the first lady were officially welcomed by the Queen on Monday after arriving in London and were later toasted at a Buckingham Palace banquet. On Tuesday the president met with departing Prime Minister Theresa May, and he will commemorate the anniversary of D-Day on Wednesday.
A divisive figure in the U.K., Trump’s visit has been met with protests.
As he was landing in London on Monday, he attacked the city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, calling him a “stone cold loser.” Last week, he called Meghan Markle‘s criticism of him as a presidential candidate “nasty” — a remark he continued to defend while in the U.K.
