Joe Biden’s impending visit to the UK has led London authorities to visibly enhance city security.
New photos from the capital show a ring of steel being erected around Regent’s Park and Metropolitan Police officers on patrol at the US Ambassador’s Winfield House residence.
The intensified police presence comes ahead of a brief visit by the President, who is due to land in just a few hours.
Mr Biden will only stay for a day in the UK ahead of this week’s NATO summit in Lithuania.
His stopover will include a meeting with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at No 10 tomorrow.
There, he and Mr Sunak will discuss the state of the war in Ukraine, which will take centre stage at the NATO conference.
The President will then head to Windsor Castle for a meeting with King Charles III.
His meeting with the monarch will be his first since Charles’ May Coronation and Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in September 2022.
While it won’t include the usual trappings of a state visit – including a state banquet or military parade – the additional security demonstrates the importance of Mr Biden’s presence.
But it comes during a time of relative tension between the two nations, with President Biden having reportedly snubbed the UK for a leading NATO position.
The Prime Minister is said to have lobbied for Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to become the alliance’s next Secretary General when Jens Stoltenberg’s term expires in 2024.
According to a report published by the Daily Telegraph, his candidacy was not supported by the US after Mr Wallace spearheaded a programme to train Ukrainian soldiers to use American-made F-16 jets.
The plan – which would have also supplied the country with the aircraft – was not initially supported by the US, and NATO sources told the publication Mr Biden now prefers EU Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen for the role.
She has denied any interest in the move, however, and is expected to contest her current position again in 2024.
The UK has also signalled concerns over the choice by the US to include cluster bombs in a new defence £626million package for Ukraine, with Mr Sunak reiterating the Government’s pledge to a “convention which prohibits the production or use of cluster munitions and discourages their use”.
