The UK has been warned that it won’t be able to strike a free trade agreement with the world’s biggest economy if it goes ahead with plans to renege on the Northern Ireland Protocol.
In a bluntly worded statement, the Speaker of the US House Nancy Pelosi said Congress won’t support a trade deal if the UK undermines the Good Friday Agreement in any way, a thinly veiled reference to recent comments by the UK Foreign Secretary.
Earlier this week Liz Truss threatened to rip up certain parts of the Protocol to make it easier for a range of goods to be exported from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, a move which intensified tensions with the European Union.
“It is deeply concerning that the United Kingdom is now seeking to unilaterally discard the Northern Ireland Protocol,” Ms Pelosi said. “Negotiated agreements like the Protocol preserve the important progress and stability forged by the Good Friday Accords, which continue to enjoy strong bipartisan and bicameral support in the United States Congress.
“As I have stated in my conversations with the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and Members of the House of Commons, if the United Kingdom chooses to undermine the Good Friday Accords, the Congress cannot and will not support a bilateral free trade agreement with the United Kingdom.”
The comments come despite a visit to Washington by the Prime Minister’s Special Representative to the US on the Protocol Conor Burns, who is also Minister of State for Northern Ireland, to drill down on the detail of the UK’s stance on the issue.
Ms Pelosi’s stance will have come as a blow to Boris Johnston who had hoped to strike a deal with the US despite the US showing little engagement on the issue.
Given the US, and particularly then-president Bill Clinton, played a key role in negotiating the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, it is particularly sensitive to any threat to its core values.
In January this year, previously secret documents revealed how Mr Clinton personally placed phone calls on two separate occasions to key figures within the Northern Ireland talks which helped keep the negotiations on track.
Ms Pelosi said such diplomacy should be adopted by the current UK government around the protocol negotiations with the European Union.
“Respectful of the will of the British people and of Brexit, I urge constructive, collaborative and good-faith negotiations to implement an agreement that upholds peace. The children of Northern Ireland, who have never known the bloody conflict and do not want to go back, deserve a future free of the violence where all may reach their fulfilment.”
