US president Joe Biden will tell Boris Johnson not to let the row over Northern Ireland’s Brexit arrangements put the Good Friday Agreement at risk when the pair meet later today.
In the US president’s first overseas visit, aides said he will stress the need to “stand behind” the Northern Ireland Protocol, the element of the Brexit deal which has triggered a UK-EU dispute.
The issue has threatened to overshadow the Prime Minister’s first meeting with the president and his hosting of the G7 summit, which begins tomorrow in Cornwall.
READ MORE: Boris Johnson and Joe Biden to dine on Scottish-themed meal at G7 summit
Aside from Brexit, Johnson and Biden will work on efforts to resume transatlantic travel and agree a new Atlantic Charter focused on challenges including climate change and security.
Biden’s close interest in issues affecting Ireland will mean that the dispute over the protocol will feature heavily in discussions with the UK and European Union over the coming days of intense diplomatic activity in Cornwall.
Joe Biden arrived in Cornwall last night
The Times reported that the president – who is intensely proud of his Irish roots – took the extraordinary step of ordering the United States’ most senior diplomat in London, Yael Lempert, to deliver a demarche – a formal protest – in a meeting with Brexit minister Lord Frost on June 3.
The newspaper reported that UK Government minutes of the meeting said: “Lempert implied that the UK had been inflaming the rhetoric, by asking if he would keep it ‘cool’.”
The US charge d’affaires indicated that if Johnson accepted demands to follow EU rules on agricultural standards, Biden would ensure that it would not “negatively affect the chances of reaching a US/UK free trade deal”.
Talks between Brexit minister Lord Frost and the European Commission’s Maros Sefcovic yesterday failed to make a breakthrough on the protocol.
The EU has threatened to launch a trade war against Britain if it fails to implement checks on goods entering Northern Ireland under the terms of the Brexit “divorce” settlement which Johnson signed.
Lord Frost (below) refused to rule out the prospect that the UK could unilaterally delay imposing checks on British-made sausages and other chilled meats due to come into force at the end of the month.
The protocol effectively keeps Northern Ireland in the European single market for goods in order to avoid a hard border with Ireland, meaning a trade barrier in the Irish Sea for goods crossing from Britain.
Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Air Force One: “President Biden has been crystal clear about his rock-solid belief in the Good Friday Agreement as the foundation for peaceful coexistence in Northern Ireland.
“That agreement must be protected, and any steps that imperil or undermine it will not be welcomed by the United States.”
Asked whether Johnson’s stance was imperilling the peace deal, Sullivan said: “I’m not going to characterize that at this point. I’m only going to say that President Biden is going to make statements in principle on this front.
“He’s not issuing threats or ultimatums; he’s going to simply convey his deep-seated belief that we need to stand behind and protect this protocol.”
Johnson told reporters yesterday that resolving the dispute with Brussels was “easily doable” and “what we want to do is make sure that we can have a solution that guarantees the peace process, protects the peace process, but also guarantees the economic and territorial integrity of the whole United Kingdom”.
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