Image Source: The Hill
LONDON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cautioned on Thursday that the US Congress “cannot and will not approve a bilateral free trade agreement” with the United Kingdom if it compromises the post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol.
The British government pledged legislation allowing ministers to disobey elements of the protocol, a critical part of the Brexit agreement aimed at maintaining peace in Northern Ireland, and Brussels and London were at odds again this week.
The senior Democrat stated in a statement Thursday that the United Kingdom’s unilateral withdrawal from the Northern Ireland Protocol was “very alarming.”
She also cautioned that if Britain undercuts the deal, post-Brexit trade discussions with the UK, which were already on hold under the Biden administration, will be in vain.
After the United Kingdom left the EU, the Northern Ireland protocol effectively kept Northern Ireland in the single market in order to avoid a land border at the politically contentious border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
However, London claims that the agreement adds additional bureaucracy to trade between the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, while unionists in Northern Ireland refuse to join a power-sharing government unless the protocol is renegotiated.
“As I have stated in my conversations with the prime minister, the foreign secretary, and members of the House of Commons, the Congress cannot and will not support a bilateral free trade agreement with the United Kingdom if the United Kingdom chooses to undermine the Good Friday Accords,” Pelosi said.
“I urge constructive, collaborative, and good-faith negotiations to achieve an agreement that upholds peace,” she added, respecting the vote of the British people and Brexit. Northern Ireland’s children, who have never seen the deadly conflict and do not want to return, deserve a future free of bloodshed in which everyone can achieve their full potential.”
Despite being a main prize of Brexit, the United Kingdom has largely abandoned prospects of a quick bilateral free trade agreement with the United States during the Biden administration.
Instead, it has concentrated on getting state-by-state deals, but Biden’s team just launched a new trade “conversation” with the United Kingdom aimed at lowering trade barriers — something that US business leaders have warned is now jeopardized as a result of London’s move.
