UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said that he will not even discuss the possibility of a UK-U.S. trade deal with Joe Biden on Thursday.
Rishi Sunak is not going to even bring up the idea of a UK-U.S. trade deal while meeting with Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday, in what appears to be a new low for British efforts on pushing the matter.
Since 2016’s Brexit vote, elements of the Conservative Party has publicly professed to been keen to push for a free trade deal to be done between the two countries, with former President Donald Trump repeatedly expressing openness to the idea during his four years in office. In action the Conservatives strung out the Brexit process too long and failed to engage with their American counterparts.
Since being installed as Commander-in-Chief in 2021, Joe Biden has almost completely dismissed any suggestion of a deal being done, frequently pushing to further his relations with Ireland and the larger European Union it is a part of instead.
Speaking to reporters during his flight to the United States, Sunak confirmed that he now has no plans to even bring the idea of a trade deal up with the Democratic Party leader, even claiming that the deal has not been a “priority” for the UK despite it once having been considered a key plank of Britain’s post-Brexit plan.
“For a while now, that has not been a priority for either the U.S. or UK,” The Guardian reports him as saying.
“What we’re both focused on is making sure that our economic partnership reflects the particular challenges and opportunities of the time that we’re in right now,” he vaguely added. “And that is the conversation that I will be having with President Biden.”
Reports indicate that Sunak may end up targeting a much more narrow deal on rare earth materials needed for the production of tech goods, something POLITICO claims lobbyists in both Europe and America are hungry for.
Considering the Conservative Party’s recent track record for landing agreements with the U.S. however, such an arrangement is far from a done deal.
This largely seems to be a symptom of the fact that the U.S. Democrats currently hold the lion’s share of political power in the country, with left-wing parties showing far more interest in deepening ties with EU member-states rather than the United Kingdom.
Biden’s own particular fondness for Ireland has also proven to be a serious sticking point, with the President frequently using his Gaelic heritage to justify a certain level of hostility towards the United Kingdom, especially in regard to the contested region of Northern Ireland.
Currently a part of the UK, the six-county area has become a key political battleground post-Brexit, with both Westminster and Brussels wrestling over who should ultimately have economic control of the region.
Joe Biden has frequently sided with the EU during these disputes, with the White House repeatedly threatening Britain with punitive economic actions should it work to unilaterally remove EU controls within the region.