President Donald Trump has descended on London for his second state visit to the UK, a spectacle that is nothing short of imperial. Hosted by King Charles III at Windsor Castle, complete with carriage processions, military flypasts and a lavish state banquet, the visit is a meticulously choreographed display of Anglo-American camaraderie.

Yet, beneath the pageantry lies a troubling truth: this is no ordinary diplomatic mission. The delegation accompanying Trump – a veritable who’s who of America’s corporate elite – reveals the visit’s true purpose: to cement the interests of multinational corporations while offering little but platitudes to the working classes on both sides of the Atlantic.

This visit is a masterclass in elite capture, where the real beneficiaries are not ordinary people but the titans of Silicon Valley, Wall Street and the global tech frontier.

Moreover, these corporate-driven deals align seamlessly with the UK’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) 2025 and National Security Strategy (NSS) 2025, framing technology and energy investments as national security imperatives – yet ultimately channelling benefits to corporations rather than bolstering equitable defence for working people.

Big tech rules

The composition of Trump’s delegation speaks volumes. Leading the pack are Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, and Sam Altman, head of OpenAI, whose companies dominate artificial intelligence and semiconductor markets.

They are joined by Microsoft executives and BlackRock’s Larry Fink, whose $700 million pledge for British data centres is just one piece of a broader £31 billion ($42 billion) “Tech Prosperity Deal”.

These corporate heavyweights are not mere tagalongs; they are the architects of an economic agenda that prioritises deregulation, intellectual property (IP) protections and market access for US firms. The deals being inked – spanning AI, quantum computing, civil nuclear energy and tariffs on cars, aluminium and steel – promise to ‘boost ties’ and create ‘highly skilled jobs’.

But whose jobs? And at what cost? The working classes, particularly in Britain’s deindustrialised heartlands and America’s Rust Belt, are unlikely to see the fruits of this corporate bonanza.

State-corporate fusion

This visit epitomises what scholars of US hegemony have long critiqued: the fusion of state power with corporate interests.

Trump’s “America First” rhetoric, which galvanised working-class voters with promises to revive manufacturing and protect jobs, has unsurprisingly morphed into a platform for corporate enrichment. Since his first term, his administration’s tax cuts and deregulation have funnelled trillions to corporations, widening wealth inequality.

Now, this visit exports that model to the UK, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government, desperate to signal economic renewal post-Brexit, is rolling out the red carpet.

Starmer’s pitch – positioning Britain as a “light-touch” regulatory haven for AI and tech, in contrast to the EU’s stricter oversight – plays directly into the hands of US giants like Nvidia and Microsoft. But the benefits skew heavily toward shareholders, not workers.

Tech prosperity for the few

Consider the “Tech Prosperity Deal” in detail. UK technology secretary Liz Kendall has hailed it as a pathway to “more money in people’s pockets”, yet the reality is far less egalitarian.

Investments in AI and data centres will likely cluster in affluent regions like London’s Thames Valley or Cambridge’s “Silicon Fen”, creating high-wage tech roles for the already privileged.

Meanwhile, working-class communities – factory workers in Sheffield, service sector employees in Birmingham or auto assemblers in Detroit – face a bleaker outlook. AI advancements from Nvidia and OpenAI accelerate automation, displacing low-skilled labour and exacerbating income inequality.

BlackRock’s data centre investments, while branded as economic boosters, prioritise infrastructure for cloud computing over community reinvestment, echoing the firm’s history of profiting from austerity measures that gut public services.

In the US, the Congressional Budget Office reported in 2024 that corporate tax breaks under Trump disproportionately benefited the top 1%; in the UK, similar patterns are likely to emerge, with public funds subsidising private profit.

Tech-military complex boosted

Crucially, these arrangements dovetail with the UK’s SDR 2025 and NSS 2025, which were published earlier this year to address a “new era of threat” from actors like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

The SDR calls for a “NATO-first” policy, warfighting readiness and a £1.5 billion investment in munitions pipelines, while committing to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, 3% thereafter and up to 5% in the longer term. It emphasises the UK as the “leading edge of innovation in NATO”, with a focus on harnessing AI, quantum computing and advanced technologies to modernise the armed forces.

Similarly, NSS 2025, under the banner of “Security for the British People in a Dangerous World”, integrates defence with economic statecraft, resilience against cyber threats and energy security through renewables and nuclear power. It stresses multilateralism, sanctions on adversaries and aligning manufacturing and tech with national security goals to build “asymmetric advantage”.

The Trump visit’s deals directly advance these strategies, but in a way that privileges corporate elites.

For instance, the nuclear energy agreements – part of the “Atlantic Partnership for Advanced Nuclear Energy” – promise multi-billion-pound investments in modular reactors and the world’s first micro-modular nuclear power plant, ostensibly to power AI data centres and drive down household bills.

This fits with the SDR’s push for civil nuclear energy to support defence innovation and the NSS’s emphasis on energy resilience against shocks like Putin’s weaponisation of resources.

Tech investments from Nvidia and OpenAI bolster the SDR’s innovation agenda, securing supply chains for semiconductors critical to military applications and countering China’s dominance.

The prospect of reduced tariffs on steel and aluminium further support NATO munitions production, fitting the SDR’s warfighting priorities.

Yet, these pacts risk privatising strategic assets: US firms like those in the delegation stand to gain from deregulated markets and IP protections, while working-class taxpayers fund the infrastructure without guaranteed job protections or affordable energy.

The SDR and NSS promise a “whole-of-society” approach, but in practice, they entrench elite networks, with defence spending hikes – totalling £2.2 billion extra in 2025/26 – potentially diverting resources from social services to corporate subsidies.

Trump and globalist elites – united

The irony is stark. Trump, who rose to power decrying globalist elites and “bad trade deals”, now jets across the Atlantic with the very architects of financialisation and tech dominance. His 2016 campaign promised to restore dignity to the working class, yet his delegation embodies the corporate monopolies that have hollowed out industrial heartlands.

For Britain’s working classes, battered by 14 years of Conservative austerity and the economic fallout of Brexit, this visit offers no lifeline. Starmer’s enthusiasm for the deals – framed as a “reset” of the special relationship – overlooks how such arrangements historically serve elite networks rather than the masses.

Anglo-American power structures highlight how transatlantic ties are sustained by overlapping corporate and policy elites, from the Council on Foreign Relations to the Atlantic Council. This visit, with its closed-door talks at Chequers and Windsor Castle, fits that mould perfectly, now amplified by the SDR and NSS’s securitisation of economic policy.

Public up in arms, kings in their castle

The public, however, is not oblivious. The Stop Trump Coalition’s “Trump Not Welcome” protest in London drew thousands, echoing the 250,000-signature petitions earlier this year calling for the visit’s cancellation.

Security measures, the tightest since King Charles’s coronation, underscore the volatility Trump inspires. Yet, shielded by protocol and pageantry, the real negotiations – on NATO burden-sharing, Ukraine aid (where Trump has hedged on sanctions) and nuclear energy deals – prioritise corporate and geopolitical interests over human needs.

The nuclear energy agreements, for instance, could funnel US investment into UK projects, but at the risk of privatising public utilities and raising energy costs for low-income households already struggling with inflation.

Affirmative action for corporate minorities

The broader context of this visit amplifies its contradictions. The UK, grappling with a sluggish economy and a cost-of-living crisis, needs investment that uplifts its most vulnerable. Instead, the deals prioritise sectors that entrench wealth concentration, all under the SDR and NSS’s national security umbrella.

In the US, the Economic Policy Institute noted in 2025 that automation-driven job losses outpaced job creation in manufacturing since Trump’s first term. The UK’s Institute for Fiscal Studies warns that tech-driven growth in the UK risks widening regional disparities. The F-35 flypast and champagne toasts at Windsor mask a deeper truth: this is an empire of elite entrenchment, not shared prosperity.

As Trump and his corporate entourage bask in royal hospitality, the working classes on both sides of the Atlantic are left to foot the bill – literally and figuratively. The millions of pounds cost of hosting the visit, borne by British taxpayers, is a bitter pill for communities facing cuts to public services. In the US, workers see their tax dollars fund a diplomatic circus that delivers little beyond photo ops.

This visit, like the transatlantic corporate elites’ alliance it celebrates, is a transaction where the powerful thrive and the rest are left to watch from the sidelines. The question remains: how long will working people tolerate being spectators to their own exploitation? Or continue to believe that Trump, the far right and their liberal appeasers in any way represent national, as opposed to corporate, interests?

Inderjeet Parmar is a professor of international politics and associate dean of research in the School of Policy and Global Affairs at City St George’s, University of London, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and a columnist at The Wire. He is an International Fellow at the ROADS Initiative think tank, Islamabad, and author of several books including Foundations of the American Century. He is currently writing a book on the history, politics and crises of the US foreign policy establishment.

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