US-UK relations enter new chapter as new PM, King settle in
WASHINGTON, USA (AP) — President Joe Biden headed to the United Kingdom on Saturday to pay his respects to Queen Elizabeth II at a time of transition in US-UK relations as both a new monarch and a new prime minister are settling in.
The hawkish approach of Prime Minister Liz Truss to Russia and China puts her on the same page as Biden. But the rise of Truss, 47, who once called the US-UK relationship “special but not exclusive”, could mark a decidedly new chapter in the transatlantic partnership on trade and more.
Of high concern for Biden officials in the early going of Truss’s premiership is her backing of legislation that would shred parts of the post-brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland. Analysts say the move could cause deep strain between the UK and the European Union and undermine peace in Northern Ireland. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-pierre said the move “would not create a conducive environment” for crafting a long-awaited US-UK trade deal coveted by Truss and her Conservative Party.
“She’s signalled that she’s willing to go to the mattresses on this and that’s going to cause a rift not just between the UK and EU, but the UK and the US,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a former senior State Department official in the Barack Obama Administration. “It’s one that’s going to keep the White House up at night.”
Biden and Truss had been set to meet Sunday, but the prime minister’s office said Saturday they would skip the weekend hello, opting instead for a meeting at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, though Truss still planned to gather with other world leaders converging on London for the royal funeral. The White House confirmed the UN meeting just as the president boarded Air Force One.
The two close allies now find themselves in a period of political uncertainty on both sides of the Atlantic. Not unlike his fellow septuagenarian Biden, King Charles III faces questions from the public about whether his age will limit his ability to faithfully carry out the duties of the monarch.
Charles, 73, and Biden, 79, discussed global cooperation on the climate crisis last year while both attended a summit in Glasgow, Scotland. They also met at Buckingham Palace in June 2021 at a reception The Queen hosted before a world leaders’ summit in Cornwall.
Truss finds herself, as Biden does, facing questions about whether she has what it takes to lift a country battered by stubborn inflation borne out of the novel coronavirus pandemic
New British Prime Minister Liz Truss and exacerbated by Russia’s predecessor, Boris Johnson, invasion of Ukraine, which has on a White House visit last year. unleashed chaos on the global It’s been more than 75 energy market. years since Winston Churchill
All the while, Britain — and declared there was a “special the rest of Europe — is carefully relationship” between the two watching to see what the nations, a notion that leaders upcoming US midterm elections on both sides have repeatedly will bring for the Democratic affirmed. Still, there have been American president after he bumps along the way. vowed upon taking office that Tony Blair was derisively “America is back” to being a branded by the British tabloids full partner in the international as George W Bush’s “poodle” community after four years for backing the 2003 Americanof Republican Donald Trump led invasion of Iraq. David pushing his “America First” Cameron and Barack Obama world view. had a “bromance”, but Obama
“It certainly is a time of also had his frustrations with change and transformation in the Brits over defence spending the UK,” said Barbara A Perry, and the UK’S handling of Libya presidential studies director following the 2011 ouster of at the University of Virginia’s Muammar Gaddafi.
Miller Center. She added, “We Margaret Thatcher and don’t know what will happen in Ronald Reagan forged a close our midterms. We don’t know alliance in the midst of the cold what will happen in 2024.” war, with the prime minister
Truss, a former accountant once telling students that the who was first elected to Republican president’s “really Parliament in 2010, hasn’t had good sense of humour” helped much interaction with Biden. their relationship. But there The US president called her were difficulties too, such as earlier this month to congratwhen Thatcher and members ulate her. Truss, as foreign of her Cabinet bristled at the secretary, accompanied her Reagan Administration’s initial
King Charles III
neutrality in the Falklands War.
The White House wasn’t expecting Truss’s announcement in May, when she was foreign secretary, that the Government would move forward with legislation that would rewrite parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol. The agreement was part of the UK’S 2020 Brexit withdrawal from the EU that was designed to avoid a hard north-south border with Ireland that might upset Northern Ireland’s fragile peace.
Now, in the first weeks of Truss’s premiership, Biden Administration officials are carefully taking the measure of the new British leader. Analysts say there is some trepidation in the Administration that undercutting the Northern Ireland Protocol could plunge Europe into trade turmoil at a moment when Biden is working mightily to keep the West unified in confronting Russia over its aggression against Ukraine.
“Brexit could once again become the issue – the issue that can make it difficult for all of Europe to work together at a time when it is critical for Europe to work together,” Bergmann said. “If you’re the Biden Administration, this is not the time for the two of your closest partners getting into fights.”
To be certain, there were areas of friction between Biden and Johnson, who had a warm rapport with former President Donald Trump.
Biden staunchly opposed Brexit as a candidate and had expressed great concern over the future of Northern Ireland. Biden once even derided Johnson as a “physical and emotional clone” of Trump.
Johnson worked hard to overcome that impression, stressing his common ground with Biden on climate change, support for international institutions, and most notably, by making certain Britain was an early and generous member of the Us-led alliance providing economic and military assistance to Ukraine in the aftermath of the Russian invasion.
The former prime minister also unsuccessfully pressed Biden, starting days into his Administration, to begin negotiations on a new US-UK trade deal just as the UK regained control over its national trade policy weeks before Biden took office and following the end of a post-brexit transition period.
But Biden largely kept focus on his domestic to-do list in the early going of his presidency — passing trillions in spending on coronavirus relief, infrastructure, and more — and put negotiations on trade deals on the back-burner.
Elliot Abrams, chairman of the conservative foreign policy group Vandenberg Coalition, said that Truss needs Biden to make a new US-UK trade deal a priority. Queen Elizabethii’s funeral won’t be the setting for tough bilateral conversations, but it still marks a moment for the two leaders to begin taking stock of each other.
Truss, who succeeded Johnson after he was forced to resign in the face of a string of scandals, has lagged in the opinion polls. She also won her election with a smaller margin than her recent predecessors and is looking for an early win.
“I think if I were [Truss], I want recognition of the leading role Britain’s played far more than any other country, outside the United States, in supporting Ukraine,” said Abrams, who served in senior national security and foreign policy roles in the Trump, George W Bush, and Reagan administrations. “And I think I’d want some positive economic message to give the British people, which could be that the free trade agreement negotiations are starting.”