Brexit artisans have long called for a trade rapprochement between the United Kingdom and the United States to compensate for the divorce with the European Union. So Donald Trump, with his disdain for multilateralism and the institutions of Brussels, seemed the perfect partner.
But in January, The UK at the same time will definitely leave the 27-country bloc and will have to deal with a new American president, Joe Biden, who prioritizes the EU and does not share the isolationist spirit of the “Brexiters”.
Biden, of Irish and Catholic descent, has warned British Prime Minister Boris Johnson against any action that would endanger peace in Northern Ireland, especially a return to a physical border with Ireland, an EU member state.
On this point, London reached an agreement with Brussels even before the post-crisis general agreement reached on Thursday, a sign, according to analysts, of some influence of Biden’s electoral victory.
“London understood that a problem on the Northern Irish border would have been absolutely toxic to British-American relations,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, of the German Marshall Fund’s US analysis center.
Johnson’s Conservative government has highlighted points where it shares an affinity with Biden, including the fight against climate change. The climate conference in November in Glasgow, Scotland, will be the occasion to highlight the common ambition of the two transatlantic partners.
On Iran as well, London and Washington should be on the same page again, after four years of disagreements.
“On paper, the British Conservative Party is closer to the Democratic Party than Donald Trump’s Republican Party,” Kirkegaard points out.
The British also announced a historic increase in military spending, to try, according to Kirkegaard, remain at the level of power as strategic partners of the United States, especially amid tensions with China. But the next US president could be more attracted to the EU military force.
“Brexit Britain has tried to become relevant but for the United States it is no longer strictly necessary to have it by its side,” he notes.
“I’m Irish”
Biden has been surrounded by former advisers to Barack Obama who are reluctant to forget that in 2016 Johnson said, in line with the thinking of the American far right, that the then president of the United States had an “ancestral antipathy. “to the United Kingdom for its ‘Kenyan’ origins.
The president-elect, who will enter the White House on January 20, does not hesitate to highlight his Irish origins, apparently to distance himself from the United Kingdom.
In a video that was widely seen after the election, Biden tells a BBC reporter that he is trying to ask him a question: “The BBC? I’m Irish,” before sketching a friendly smile.
“There is clearly a feeling among some people in the Biden circle that Brexit was a completely wrong decision and that Johnson has been very close to Trump.”, Says Erik Brattberg, director of the European program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “They think then that the importance of the relationship with London needs to be downplayed a bit.”
But he clarifies that Biden recognizes the special relationship with the UK and will not neglect this important ally as his predecessor did with other European leaders, especially Germany’s Angela Merkel.
“Trump’s style was more about fostering divisions in Europe, while Biden will look for his legacy to be to try to heal those divisions,” Brattberg says.
No priority in trade
London has accelerated plans to seal a trade deal with the United States to make up for the European divorce, but lawmakers from Biden’s Democratic party have warned that all negotiations were off the table until the Northern Ireland issue was resolved.
But even with Northern Ireland’s status resolved for now, any agreement could be very unpopular among British public opinion, due to less demanding animal welfare rules in the United States for meat, and prices probably higher for medicines.
Biden has indicated that he will not give priority to the signing of new trade agreements, and without the approval of Congress, on July 1 it will lose the possibility of resorting to mechanisms to speed up negotiations.
“It will be very difficult if not impossible for the United States to reach an agreement with the United Kingdom,” says Jennifer Hillman, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, calculating that negotiations should end in April.