Australian flag photo unrelated to King Charles III's Washington visit
- Published on May 1, 2026 at 21:14
- 2 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
An image spreading across social media falsely purports to show a giant Australian flag hung on a US federal building beside the American flag as President Donald Trump welcomed King Charles III to the country in April 2026. While reports indicated that several Australian flags were briefly and accidentally displayed near the White House ahead of the British monarch's visit, the photo circulating online is old and unrelated, taken in 2019 when then-Australian prime minister Scott Morrison came to Washington.
"The US Protocol Office raised the Australian flag instead of the UK flag for King Charles' visit. Nobody in the Trump admin has a working brain," says an April 28, 2026 post on Threads.
The image shows large American and Australian flags hanging side-by-side from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is part of the White House compound. Similar posts spread the same visual across other platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and X.
The posts came as Charles and Queen Camilla visited the United States for a four-day diplomatic marathon aimed at easing tensions between the United States and United Kingdom over the war in Iran. The monarch is also the head of state for Australia, a former British colony, but the role is primarily symbolic.
News reports indicated that 15 Australian flags were mistakenly hoisted among some 230 flags raised on lampposts near the White House and Eisenhower Executive Office Building, before they were taken down and replaced with the national banner of the United Kingdom (archived here and here).
While the Australian flag incorporates the Union Jack -- the nickname for the United Kingdom's flag -- into its design, the rest of the banner consists of a blue background and six white stars.
The error was made by Washington's District Department of Transportation, not the Trump administration, according to the US fact-checking website Snopes (archived here). Getty Images photos showed local government workers replacing the flags April 24 (archived here).
The image circulating online, meanwhile, predates the mishap by several years.
Reverse image searches traced the picture to the official White House account for Trump's first presidency on the photo-sharing service Flickr, where it was dated September 18, 2019 (archived here). The caption says the photo shows the American and Australian flags displayed on the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
The photo was included in an album documenting then-Australian prime minister Morrison's visit to the White House (archived here).
An AFP photo taken April 24, 2026 -- the day the Australian flags were accidentally raised -- shows a commemorative flag honoring the 250th anniversary of the United States hanging from the facade of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Another AFP photo snapped April 27, as Charles arrived in the US capital, captured the same display.
AFP has debunked other misinformation about US politics here.
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