US Congress threatens to pull out of #freetrade deal if UK undermines #GoodFridayAgreement
Partners? Dominic Raab is in the United States, where he has been meeting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. But the threat to the Good Friday Agreement posed by the Tory government’s Internal Market Bill means they may not see eye-to-eye.
This is awkward for Boris Johnson.
The US Congress – or at least members of it – is threatening to withdraw from any free trade deal with the UK if Boris Johnson’s Internal Market Bill undermines the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland.
This is a body blow to Johnson, who has claimed that the Bill is vitally important even though it very clearly breaks international law by shattering treaty agreements with the EU and in NI.
According to the BBC:
US Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week said there would be no UK-US trade deal if the Good Friday Agreement was undermined.
Ms Pelosi said if the UK broke international law and Brexit undermined the Good Friday Agreement – the Northern Ireland peace deal – there would be “absolutely no chance of a US-UK trade agreement passing the Congress”.
On Tuesday, four senior congressmen also issued a similar warning, saying a UK-US trade deal would be blocked if the UK failed to preserve the gains of the Good Friday Agreement.
In a letter to Mr Johnson, the four congressmen said the plans to give ministers powers to override part of the UK’s exit agreement – designed to avoid a hard Irish border – could have “disastrous consequences for the Good Friday Agreement and broader process to maintain peace on the island of Ireland”.
“We therefore urge you to abandon any and all legally questionable and unfair efforts to flout the Northern Ireland protocol of the withdrawal agreement and look to ensure that Brexit negotiations do not undermine the decades of progress to bring peace to Northern Ireland,” the letter added.
The letter was signed by Democratic congressmen Eliot Engel, Richard Neal, and Bill Keating, who all chair committees in the US House of Representatives, as well as Republican Congressman Peter King.
Downing Street has said the GFA will be upheld “in all circumstances” but the problem is that Johnson has a record of saying one thing and doing the opposite.
The row over the Internal Market Bill is because it contradicts the EU Withdrawal Agreement that Johnson himself signed in January after expelling 21 Tory MPs for failing to support him.
He simply cannot be trusted; he will say anything he likes to get whatever he wants at a particular time.
The warning from Congress underlines fears that no other nation will want to do a deal with a country that breaks international law.
The Americans would be better-advised to pull out of any deal now.
They might as well be negotiating with a spoilt child.
Source: Brexit: Dominic Raab seeks to reassure US politicians over Brexit bill – BBC News
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Only people as blindly stupid as this current government could fail to understand the influence of the Irish lobby in US politics,and why the US government cannot be seen to support the undermining of the GFA,especially in election year.
Do we really want a deal with the USA anyway? It could well involve selling off the NHS and forcing us to accept chlorinated chicken and lower animal welfare standards. Not that I want to see Johnson get his own way mind you, but I reallt don’t want to see some dodgy trade deal made into law.
It’s all interlinked, it seems – with the EU and US united against the UK!
The EU won’t sign off the UK as a third-country so the UK says it will undermine the GFA – so the US says it won’t do a trade deal, which is the probably reason the UK is being cagey about its food regulatory standards.