Joe Biden’s trip to Belfast was seen in government as a chance to strengthen the special relationship. The initial hope had been that by the time the US President jetted to Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, power-sharing would have returned to Stormont. However, after the DUP voted against Rishi Sunak’s renegotiation of the Northern Ireland Protocol, Biden instead used his speech in Belfast to praise the Windsor Framework and express his ‘hope’ that ‘the assembly and executive will soon be restored’.
Such words from the US President – who often speaks of his Irish heritage with pride – were given short shrift by the DUP, with the party’s leader Jeffrey Donaldson telling reporters that the visit had failed to ‘change the political dynamic in Northern Ireland’. The president is now in the Republic of Ireland for the next few days – addressing the Irish parliament and embarking on a tour of his ‘ancestral’ home with his son Hunter. The very fact that figures in the White House have had to deny that Biden is ‘anti-British’ shows why he may not be best placed to appeal to the unionist parties in Northern Ireland.
As for Sunak’s own Biden charm offensive, there was awkward footage of the pair making polite conversation over tea – in what Downing Street insisted was a bi-lateral (after a US official joked to the New York Times that the short meeting amounted to a ‘bi-latte’). The Prime Minister was keen to talk up the 45-minute exchange – which went on beyond the scheduled meeting time. Afterwards, he hailed progress on economic investment in Northern Ireland as well as various foreign policy issues.
Yet perhaps the most positive takeaway from the visit for Sunak is that he enjoys a stronger relationship with the President than his two predecessors. Granted, that may be a low bar. During Boris Johnson’s time in No. 10 there were regular reports of tension between the two. As for Liz Truss, Biden publicly criticised her plan to cut the 45p top rate of tax during the fallout from her mini-Budget. Speaking today from Washington DC, Truss used her Margaret Thatcher Freedom Lecture to name Biden as part of the ‘coordinated resistance’ her plans faced. In contrast, Sunak’s softly, softly approach along with the Windsor Framework means that the UK/US relationship is in a more constructive place than it has been for some time. The test is whether Sunak can now use that to deliver results on trade and security.
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