by Andrew MacAskill
LONDON (Reuters) – Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has warned Britain there could be no trade deal with the United States if London jeopardizes the deal of peace in Northern Ireland, known as “Good Friday”.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss announced on Tuesday that the British government intends to present in the coming weeks a bill amending the Northern Irish protocol provided for in the agreement on the exit of the United Kingdom from the Union. European.
This protocol provides for the establishment of customs controls on certain goods transiting from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, a British province. Its purpose was, following Brexit, to avoid the re-establishment of a physical border with the Republic of Ireland, a member of the EU, but this device led to disruptions in the supply of Northern Ireland and aroused political tensions.
Nancy Pelosi said that for her the existing agreement was essential to maintaining the 1998 peace agreement, which ended three decades of violence in Northern Ireland, during which clashes between Catholic nationalists and Protestant loyalists caused some 3,600 deaths.
“If the UK chooses to undermine the Good Friday agreements, Congress cannot and will not support a bilateral free trade agreement with the UK,” Nancy Pelosi said in a statement released Thursday.
The Northern Irish question has revived the cleavage between Unionists and Republicans between the two parts of the island despite the 1998 agreement negotiated with the mediation of former American President Bill Clinton. Many Catholic nationalists want unification with Northern Ireland, while Protestant unionists want to remain part of the UK.
The latter had made a post-Brexit trade agreement with the United States one of his top priorities, but hopes for a quick agreement have been dashed as the Biden administration does not seem in a hurry to achieve it.
Nancy Pelosi’s warning follows the visit to Washington by Conor Burns, the new special envoy to the United States on the Northern Irish protocol, to explain the British position.
“Respecting the will of the British people and Brexit, I urge constructive, collaborative and good faith negotiations to deliver a deal that preserves peace,” Pelosi added.
(Report Andrew MacAskill, French version Laetitia Volga, edited by Sophie Louet)
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