The US-UK relationship is a little less special after Brexit

President-elect Joe Biden and other Democrats, including those with Irish-American blocs active in their districts, had warned that a Brexit without an agreement would lead to a tough border between the British province of Northern Ireland and Ireland and violate the peace agreement. on Good Friday, which the Clinton administration helped mediate in 1998.

With an agreement that avoids the need for tariffs between the UK and EU member Ireland, the prospect has been avoided.

“I am pleased to see that this agreement preserves the Good Friday Agreement, which has maintained decades of peace for the British and European peoples and ensures that it will not return to a hard border on the island of Ireland,” said Rep. Richard Neal (D., Mass.), Chairman of the U.S. House Tax and Trade Commission. “I look forward to continuing the US engagement with our overseas trading partners in the coming years.”

But even with this strain removed, in an important sense, Brexit has reduced the value of the relationship with the US, because, as of January 31, Britain has no longer been in the corridors of power in Brussels, influencing EU decisions.

“There is no doubt that we have lost a significant element of our value to the US because we are no longer around the EU,” said Kim Darroch, a former British ambassador to the US and EU and a national security adviser to the UK. government.

He said Washington used to consult London weekly on issues of interest to it in Brussels, from proposed EU legislation to relations with Russia. Now, London is no longer such an important pipeline or influence over Berlin, Paris and Brussels.

The UK will continue to be closer to the US than other European capitals in some areas where there is a long-standing association, including the exchange of information and military cooperation.

And in many areas, the Biden administration’s approach to international affairs is likely to be more comfortable for Britain than the Trump administration, where allies would sometimes find out about major political developments on the president’s Twitter account or from the White House leaks.

President Trump is considered by foreign policy experts to be accelerating the transition to high-power politics, just as Britain has decided to leave one of the world’s major economic powers. Mr. Biden will try to reverse some of Trump’s legacy, but he will not be able to erase everything.

British officials expect Mr. Trump’s ambiguous attitude toward the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to be replaced by a president to support the alliance, and that Mr. Biden will travel with allies to seek a common approach to Iran after Trump pulled unilaterally from the nuclear deal still backed by Britain

As a country that has just emerged from one of the world’s three largest trading powers, Britain is also likely to welcome a more constructive approach to the World Trade Organization, which Mr Trump has tried to undermine.

A spokesman for the Biden transition team said the president-elect had made it clear that he would support a strong kingdom and a strong EU and that the incoming administration seemed to work with them to address the range of global challenges they all face.

These include climate change. Mr. Trump removed the United States from the Paris agreement on climate change, and Mr. Biden said he would run again. Mr Biden has named former Secretary of State John Kerry as the climate envoy, and the UK is hosting the next United Nations Climate Summit in Glasgow in November.

The United Kingdom will also host a summit of the Group of Seven Great Industrialized Countries next year.

“Americans will want to shape the outcome of both meetings by working with us,” Darroch said.

Another likely area of ​​cooperation with the United States and the United Kingdom is the confrontation with China, which Mr. Trump has done largely alone, but Mr. Biden hopes to engage with more help from allies and partner countries. The EU is seen in Washington as more equivocal because it prioritises economic ties.

In a tweet seen as a warning to Brussels, Biden adviser Jake Sullivan said this week that the US would like to consult on the future economic relationship between the EU and China, as the two are considering an investment pact.

In two areas, there are important questions for London: trade and politics.

Biden will inherit Mr Trump’s incomplete trade negotiations with the UK A free trade agreement with the US would be an extremely important political signal for Mr Johnson’s government as a symbol of the UK’s freedom outside the EU to continue its own political trade. An agreement is also strongly supported by the right wing of its Conservative Party, which believes it ensures Britain’s long-term distance from the EU’s economic and regulatory orbit.

US trade experts say the completion of talks on a comprehensive agreement by mid-next year is a big deal, given Britain’s sensibilities about openness to US agriculture and ambivalence about Democratic Party trade agreements. In July, legislation to facilitate the adoption of commercial transactions will expire, making any comprehensive agreement with the UK a difficult two-step process on Capitol Hill.

Trade agreements are unlikely to be Mr Biden’s first concern as he takes office. Returning to the question, there is no guarantee that the UK will be a priority for Democrats compared to the larger EU economic bloc.

“I think we should look first at what we would do with the EU,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D., NY), who will chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee from January. “Then we can look at the UK,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.

However, the trade came on a recent call between Mr Johnson and Mr Biden, and US and UK trade officials remained in contact since the election.

Katherine Tai, Mr. Biden’s election to the U.S. Trade Representative, has recent experience in compromising with fellow Democrats on the new version of the Trump administration’s North American trade pact. The crux of this agreement – the application of high labor standards for marketed products – is something that Washington and London generally agree on.

In terms of politics, there is still no evidence that Mr Biden and Mr Johnson will develop a close personal relationship that some US presidents and British prime ministers have had in the past. While some lawmakers in Johnson’s party are sorry to see Trump leave, others wonder if there has been any tangible benefit to Britain from embracing Brexit and its seemingly comfortable relationship with Mr Johnson.

This approach and Mr Johnson’s statement in 2016 that President Obama may have had an “ancestral antipathy to the British Empire” because of his “partial Kenyan legacy” means that for some of Biden’s Democratic allies, Mr Johnson has work to do. to build bridges with the new administration.

Write to Stephen Fidler at [email protected] and William Mauldin at [email protected]