The US will not pay for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s security, Donald Trump announced.
The US president said the couple should foot the bill for their bodyguards now they have moved across the border from Vancouver.
Canada had made it clear it would not pay for security after Harry and Meghan stood down as senior royals this week.
And in a hugely embarrassing move for the pair, Trump tweeted: “I am a great friend and admirer of the Queen and the UK. It was reported that Harry and Meghan, who left the Kingdom, would reside permanently in Canada. Now they have left Canada for the US however, the US will not pay for their security protection. They must pay!”
It emerged that the duke and duchess had moved to California before the border with Canada closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Meghan’s mother Doria lives in Los Angeles, and the former actress grew up there.
The couple took a private jet with their son Archie, 10 months, just before non-essential travel between Canada and the US was suspended. The Sussexes have long planned to set up home in Meghan’s home state in the US but brought their plans forward because of the global health crisis.
The family had been staying in a borrowed £10mn mansion in Vancouver Island, where they had been welcomed by the local community, but sources said they knew Canada ‘wouldn’t work for them’ in the long run.
Harry, 35, and Meghan, 38, officially step down as senior working royals tomorrow.
It means the US will be under no legal obligation to shield them as “internationally protected persons”. Their decision to move to California came shortly after the Canadian authorities said they would refuse to contribute to the cost of protecting them with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police after March 31.
The prince’s chances of building a good relationship with the US president may have been undermined when a leaked phone call saw him say Trump has “blood on his hands”.
Russian hackers managed to connect to the couple’s Canadian bolthole where they persuaded the prince that he was speaking to Swedish eco-activist Greta Thunberg and her father.
In the calls Harry took aim at the president’s environmental record, he said: “I think the mere fact that Donald Trump is pushing the coal industry is so big in America, he has blood on his hands”. He later added: “Unfortunately the world is being led by some very sick people so the people like yourselves and younger generation are the ones that are going to make all the difference.”
Meghan has also had issues with President Trump in the past, blasting him as ‘misogynistic’ and ‘divisive’ in a television interview before he was elected to office.
Prince Harry and Meghan...setback
