Johnson to press US to open up for UK visitors
Prime Minister’s White House trip aims to convince President Biden over travel ban
BORIS JOHNSON will push Joe Biden to change Covid travel rules and let Britons fly to the United States when they meet tomorrow in the White House for the first time.
The Prime Minister will make an “impassioned” case for why Mr Biden should lift his travel ban by allowing fully vaccinated people in the UK to travel directly into America.
Mr Biden’s failure to ease restrictions despite both leaders pledging to take action when they met at the G7 summit in June has frustrated Whitehall and left UK businesses despairing.
There will also be a push for Mr Biden to promise billions of dollars more in climate financing for developing nations to help Mr Johnson hit a flagship Cop26 UN climate conference target.
The Prime Minister flew to New York yesterday, kick-starting a four-day US visit in which he will attend the UN General Assembly before his first White House trip since entering No 10 in July 2019.
It follows a boost to the special relationship last week as the UK and US signed a new defence pact with Australia, including the deployment of defence-powered submarines in the Indo-pacific, infuriating France which saw its deal with Australia ditched.
One of the key items on Mr Johnson’s agenda for the talks tomorrow is to convince Mr Biden to overturn the travel ban initially adopted by Donald Trump and kept in place ever since.
A senior government source told The Daily Telegraph: “The Prime Minister will make an impassioned case for Brits who have been double-jabbed to be allowed to travel to the US. There are a lot of family links, business links and millions of tourists travel every year.”
In a normal year, more than four million Britons fly to America, but during the pandemic and the tight US restrictions, only a fraction of those trips have gone ahead.
Under the Biden administration rules, only US citizens and residents can travel from scores of countries, including the UK, and most of Europe and Canada, into the US.
Exemptions are available by applying to US embassies, but UK-US business bodies stress that the process is bureaucratic and time-consuming, with no guarantee of success.
A UK-US travel task force was established when Mr Johnson and Mr Biden held their first in-person meeting as world leaders at the G7 summit in Cornwall three months ago.
Since then, the UK Government has eased rules by allowing double-jabbed Americans to avoid quarantine when they arrive in the UK.
The US administration has argued that its conditions protect the country from potential new Covid variants that could emerge and be more deadly at resisting vaccinations.
Mr Biden is not expected to announce a change in the rules this week, but Downing Street will still press its case behind closed doors.
Liz Truss, the new Foreign Secretary, will join Mr Johnson on the visit, marking her first international trip in her new role.
Another key focus of the trip, which will see the Prime Minister hold talks with world leaders and UN senior figures in New York, will be shoring up support ahead of Cop26.
The UN climate change conference is being hosted in Glasgow at the start of November, with Mr Johnson under pressure to make sure flagship targets are hit. He is championing a decadelong UN drive to finally convince developed nations to give $100 billion a year in climate finance to developing countries.
Currently, it is estimated that between $80 billion and $90 billion a year has been pledged.
Touching down in New York last night, Mr Johnson said: “The world’s richest countries made an historic commitment to the world’s poorest – we now owe it to them to deliver on that.”
BORIS JOHNSON will challenge world leaders to commit to ambitious climate change pledges before Cop26 when he visits the UN this week.
During a meeting with Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president, Mr Johnson will raise the issue of global warming. Mr Bolsonaro has courted controversy because he has allowed farmers to clear land in the Amazon rainforest.
Mr Johnson has made new pledges on the planting and protection of trees as one of his four key goals for November’s Cop26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. The others are: reducing dependence on coal, ending the sale of polluting cars and delivering a promise to give developing nations $100bn a year to fight climate change.
Mr Johnson last night admitted that there is just a “six in 10” chance that one of his flagship targets for Cop26 will be reached. The pessimistic outlook concerns the hope of getting developed nations to agree to give $100 billion a year in climate finance to poorer countries.
The Prime Minister said some members of the G20 Group of Nations must “do more”.
Mr Johnson said: “World leaders have a small window of time left to deliver on their climate commitments ahead of Cop26. My message to those I meet this week will be clear: future generations will judge us based on what we achieve in the coming months.
“This week, as world leaders arrive in New York for the biggest diplomatic event of the year, I will be pushing them to take concrete action on coal, climate, cars and trees, so we can make a success of Cop26 and keep our climate goals within reach. We need to continue to make a case for a sustainable recovery from coronavirus rooted in green growth. We have a responsibility to ensure the benefits of that growth extend to all.”
Meanwhile, the Chinese President Xi Jinping is yet to commit to attending the conference. Cop26 president Alok Sharma was unable to confirm if China would send a delegation to the gathering, although he insisted he was “very, very hopeful” it would. The agreement of China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, is seen as crucial if the talks are to slow global warming.
However, Beijing has been infuriated by the new defence pact entered into by the UK, US and Australia. The foreign ministry in Beijing said the plan to collaborate on developing a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for Australia was “extremely irresponsible”.
Mr Sharma, who will also attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York, said he did not expect Mr Xi to say whether he was going to Glasgow until nearer the time. He told BBC1’S The Andrew Marr Show: “On the issue of whether Xi Jinping is going to come, that is not yet confirmed. Normally these things come a bit closer to summits. I am very hopeful we will have a delegation from China that is coming.
“President Xi Jinping would come for the world leaders’ conference, which is the first two days of Cop. But we want China there as part of the negotiations.”
Mr Sharma told Sky News: “They (China) have said to me they want Cop26 to be a success. The ball is in their court. We want them to make it a success, together with the rest of the world.”