Trump holds up the letter from King Charles. Photo / the Washington Post
United States President Donald Trump is well known for his time in front of television cameras.
He has long had a reputation for firing off all-caps missives, at all hours, on social media.
But fine stationery, especially if embossed with an official letterhead and featuring a signature, may be his favourite mode of presidential communication.
In the span of a few hours yesterday, he fired off more than a dozen letters to different leaders informing them of new tariff rates he intends to impose on their countries.
That evening local time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rose in the Blue Room of the White House, reaching over the dining room table to offer Trump a letter of a different sort.
“I want to present to you, Mr President, the letter I sent to the Nobel Prize committee,” he said. “It’s nominating you for the Peace Prize, which is well deserved. And you should get it.”
Trump studied a page with a golden letterhead and a signature in blue ink.
“Wow,” he said. “Thank you very much. Coming from you in particular, this is very meaningful.”
One of the truest ways to Trump’s heart is a signed letter.
His love of letters provides a window into the way he approaches communication – and the presidency.
He likes tactile things. He cherishes the attention. He wants something to show off.
“It goes to the formality of a letter, as opposed to a tweet,” said John Bolton, who served as a national security adviser to Trump during his first term.
“He doesn’t do email. He doesn’t do text messages with people. A letter represents a certain amount of effort. You have to write it and type it up. It indicates a level of seriousness.”
President Joe Biden was known to collect phone numbers, wanting a personal connection that came with conversation, in particular with those in grief.
President Barack Obama also used letters as a way to hear from regular Americans, reading 10 each night selected by his staff, while President George Bush snr often sent short handwritten notes.
President Bill Clinton became the first US leader to send an email while in office, and in 1994 wrote in all capital letters from the account ClintonPz@aol.com to the Swedish Prime Minister: “This demonstration of electronic communications is an important step toward building a global information superhighway”.
Trump uses a variety of communication styles, and his second term has been marked by how often he appears before television cameras jousting with reporters. But it’s in formal interactions, particularly with other world leaders, that he turns to the written word.
“He likes the pomp and circumstances of a letter,” a White House official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“Because it has become an anomaly in today’s electronic world, he likes that someone invests the time to do something such as an old-school letter.”
Over the past several days, Trump repeatedly has talked about dashing off letters to dozens of countries, alerting them to the latest iteration of his trade policies.
He’s had the letters typed up, with golden White House letterhead, and affixed his signature at the bottom.
“As you see,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, holding up the ones addressed to Japan and South Korea, “we have these beautiful letters that the President has signed”.
The letters are almost all identical – including one addressed to “Mr President” but written to a female head of Bosnia – and all conclude with “With best wishes, I am, Sincerely” with Trump’s signature.
Earlier in his presidency, when Trump wanted to press Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, into a new nuclear deal, he sent a letter through intermediaries.
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried to patch things up after a confrontational Oval Office meeting in February, he sought to make amends in a message that Trump considered a letter.
And perhaps most memorably, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer staged a dramatic reveal of a letter from King Charles III, which he pulled from his suit jacket in an Oval Office presentation he had rehearsed ahead of time.
“It is my pleasure to bring, from his Majesty the King, a letter,” he said during his visit in February. “… So can I present a letter from the King?”
The flourish clearly delighted Trump, who displayed the missive to the room, cooed about the King’s “beautiful” signature on the fine stationery and smiled as Starmer read aloud a paragraph inviting Trump for a state visit.
Trump preserves letters from allies and adversaries – and holds a special place for correspondence from those who have fallen into both categories over the years.
“That is quite a signature, isn’t it?” he marvelled at the second page from Charles. “How beautiful.”
Over the decades, Trump has been pen pals with numerous celebrities and politicians, collecting and carefully preserving many of their letters. During his first term, he cherished letters he received from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“We fell in love. Okay?” Trump said of the correspondence with the North Korean dictator. “No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters. We fell in love.”
His desire to retain such letters resulted in legal consequences after his first term, when federal officials launched an investigation into how classified documents ended up at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.
Officials at the National Archives had noticed that a number of documents were missing, including the letters from Kim.
Such letters play to Trump’s desire for deference – and his preference for the sort of fawning behaviour that sometimes comes with diplomacy, said Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian and senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
“He likes imperial trappings. The fact that – even if it’s only half-jokingly – he refers to himself as a king. Liking personal letters is very consistent with that, isn’t it? It’s a very 19th-century, early 20th-century mode of expression,” said Naftali, who is also the former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
“There is something of the Versailles style about Donald Trump, and his love of handwritten missives sort of fits that vibe.”
White House communications director Steven Cheung said Trump’s use of “all forms of communication” is why he is “the People’s President”.
“Whether through letters or phone calls or social media posts, the President utilises all forms of communications to reach out to as many people as possible,” he said.
Trump has made no secret of his partiality to letters. He even set up a special filing system for his collection.
After leaving office, he published a book called Letters to Trump, a glossy tome that cost US$100 and was filled with the words he had received over the years with his commentary on those who sent them.
“We had lots of great letters from lots of great people and not-so-great people, to be honest with you,” Trump told reporters as the book was being released.
As a businessman, Trump wrote letters to the editor, published in the New York Times, arguing for a convention centre on 34th Street.
As a celebrity, he dropped notes to magician David Copperfield and golfer Arnold Palmer.
And as a man harbouring political ambitions, he made future connections.
“Congratulations on your victory - I had no doubts,” he wrote to Mike Pence of Indiana in 2012. “You will be a terrific governor!”
Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote in 1987, thanking him for a magnum of champagne and offering tickets to the opening of the Phantom of the Opera. Senator Edward Kennedy, the late liberal lion, wrote several times thanking him for spending time together.
Trump wrote to then-Prince Charles in 1994 offering him an honorary membership to Mar-a-Lago, and he received a letter from Princess Diana in 1997 – just weeks before her death – thanking him for sending flowers on her birthday.
He wrote to Bill Clinton in 2011, thanking him and Hillary Clinton for sending handcrafted gifts from Haiti.
Trump preserved letters from Alec Baldwin (“For a tough guy in a tough business, you are a sweet and generous man”) and from Oprah Winfrey (“There’s nothing like being treated like a queen by a man who knows how to be a king,” she wrote in 1997, following up in 2000 with, “Too bad we’re not running for office, what a TEAM!”)
Richard Nixon sent Trump a letter in 1987, which starts, “I did not see the program, but Mrs. Nixon told me that you were great on the Donahue Show.
“As you can imagine, she is an expert on politicians and she predicts that whenever you decide to run for office, you will be a winner!”
The former President also wrote to Trump in 1990, a time when Trump’s businesses were struggling and media coverage had turned sour.
“I know nothing about the intricacies of your business enterprises but the massive media attack on you puts me in your corner!” Nixon wrote.
The letters with Kim may have exemplified more than any others Trump’s appreciation for such personal exchanges.
The first one arrived with a North Korean diplomat, who drove up to the South Lawn and emerged to walk into the White House only to sprint back after having forgotten the letter in the car.
“He probably wouldn’t have gotten back into North Korea if he didn’t deliver the letter,” Bolton recalled.
“When you read the English translation, it was clear it was written by someone in the agitprop bureau. It was jargon intended to flatter Trump.”
Trump’s love of letters was clear on his first day in office this year, when he was reminded by Fox News reporter Peter Doocy that Biden may have left him one.
Trump opened the drawer of the Resolute Desk and discovered a note, joking that he might read it aloud. He didn’t, but for several days he teased about the contents, and a copy was later published by Fox News.
“I appreciated the letter,” Trump said. It was perhaps the only nice thing he has said about a predecessor he disdains.
The US President told a private gathering of fundraisers that Putin ‘believed me 100%’.