President-elect Joe Biden
Joe Biden: Georgia’s signature audit detects no fraud in the presidential election. Pence refused to sign to plan election cancellation, according to lawyers, an announcement from the New Lincoln Project shows a Trump border wall built from tombstones of victims of COVID-19 MORE it faces key challenges in reshaping US relations with Britain and the European Union even after the Brexit trade deal ended last week concluding the UK’s exit from economic union.
The agreement means that the UK and the EU will not have to spend most of 2021 or more analyzing it on Brexit, which would have distracted the list of issues appearing in the international community, ranging from COVID -19 to China.
“It simply came to our notice then. He dodged a couple of bullets, “said Jacob Kirkegaard of Biden, a non-resident senior member of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
“It means two traditional American allies in Europe are not in danger, so Biden doesn’t need to play with peace from day one.”
In a sense, the agreement is a first success for Biden, whose victory in the November elections added to the already high pressure that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced to reach an agreement with the Union. European before the end of the year.
The new agreement met an important goal of Biden, ensuring that there would be no hard customs borders between Ireland, part of the EU, and Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom.
Biden wanted to ensure that Brexit did not jeopardize the Good Friday agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland.
“The UK heard a clear message from Joe Biden:‘ Don’t stick to the Good Friday Agreement, ’” said Heather Conley, CSIS vice-president and former deputy secretary of state at the Office for European and Eurasian Affairs of George W. Bush. “They heard this message and responded.”
However, Brexit can still create more challenges than opportunities for Biden, who along with former President Obama opposed Britain’s exit from the EU.
At the top of the list will be ordered how American companies will be affected by the agreement. For decades, the UK has been a base and conduit for American companies looking to enter the European market. Now that the UK and the EU have split, the Biden administration will have to sort out the rules for American companies involved in all kinds of transatlantic trade.
“The next administration will have to be very alert to the negative impact of the new agreement on US companies in the UK,” Conley said. “The first priority is to make sure that U.S. companies and their employees do not accidentally become collateral damage.”
For example, last week’s trade agreement did not cover trade in services or financial problems, both major components of modern economic trade.
The UK will seek to negotiate a trade deal with the US, but Conley said the absence of a financial services deal between the UK and the EU will complicate those efforts.
Biden himself has rejected the idea of a quick trade deal.
“I won’t enter into any new business deal with anyone until we’ve made big investments here at home, in our workers and in education,” he told The New York Times in early December.
Another complication is that the fast-track law that prevents Congress from modifying trade agreements, which is considered a necessity to negotiate these pacts, expires in months.
Ben Judah, a senior non-resident member of the Atlantic Council, says Brexit also offers the United States some opportunities.
When it was part of the EU, the UK was forced to side with France, Germany and other EU members against the US in certain trade disputes.
Now, if he wants to tackle a problem with the United States, he can do so and put more pressure on his former EU counterparts. The EU and the US, for example, are now involved in major disputes over aerospace subsidies, digital taxation, and privacy.
The same goes for a wide range of foreign policy issues.
“The United States does not really have so many close-to-world democratic allies who share views on China and Russia. There are only a handful, and the UK is one of them, “Judah said.
For example, the EU and China are on the brink of a major investment agreement with the support of the 27 EU member states. Some argue that a pre-Brexit UK could have expressed concern or even suppressed that agreement.
Strong collaboration between the UK and the US could help set a standard when tackling China or other Biden priorities, such as climate change.
Still, Kirkegaard says the global axis of Brexit is a blow to Biden’s foreign policy ambitions. “Strategically, it is the reality that for a multilateralist administration, Brexit is a setback,” he said.
In Britain, there is also concern that Brexit will make the UK a priority for the US, a special relationship or not, due to its size in relation to the EU as a whole.
“Suddenly, we are no longer an irreplaceable bridge between Europe and America. We are now less relevant to both, “said former British Conservative Prime Minister John Major last month.” In recent decades, we have consoled ourselves by “rising above our weight” in international affairs. I think it was true, but that was then, and that is now. “
Kirkegaard said the strategic importance of the UK is diminishing and that if the United States wanted to choose Trump-style trade fights, they would now have it easier with the UK.
The Biden administration may also want to think twice about taking steps that may seem to “reward” Brexit, such as establishing favorable trade agreements.
“If you are the administration of Biden, you fundamentally consider the EU as a strategic partner in everything from China to climate change. So you don’t want the EU to separate anymore, “said Kirkegaard.
“There is an incentive to indicate to other countries that they will not reward you for leaving the EU”