After arriving in London on Monday morning, June 3 for an official state visit, President Donald Trump visited Buckingham Palace and met with members of the British royal family — including Queen Elizabeth II. The U.S. president, during his visit to the U.K., will be joining British officials in commemorating the 75th anniversary of D-Day. And according to a June 4 report by the Guardian, the visit is costing U.S. taxpayers a fortune.
The Guardian’s Severin Carrell examined some of the costs associated with the visit, including five-star luxury hotels and chauffeured vehicles — not to mention security and administrative costs. Carrell, based on U.S. State Department records, reports a cost of £965,921 (or roughly $1,223,230 in U.S. dollars) for a VIP accommodation at the five-star Intercontinental Hotel on Park Lane in London’s Mayfair section. Trump, Carrell notes, is traveling with an entire encourage that also includes his third wife, First Lady Melania Trump, as well as his son-in-law Jared Kushner (a White House senior adviser) and all four of the president’s adult children: Ivanka, Eric, Tiffany and Donald, Jr.
Carrell, reporting State Department figures, notes that other hotel expenses range from $266,882 at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel to $96,162 at the Cumberland Hotel/Hard Rock Hotel to another $122,059 at the Intercontinental.
The U.S., according to Carrell, has a “long-running contract” for chauffeured limousines with the firm Tristar Cars. State Department records, Carrell reports, show a cost of $353,070 for the U.S. Embassy’s May 20 contract with Tristar.