No chance of US-UK deal if Northern Ireland peace at risk – Pelosi – The Guardian

Senior US politician says Brexit cannot be allowed to imperil Good Friday agreement

Nancy Pelosi said a trade deal would not pass Congress if it jeopardised peace in Northern Ireland.
Photograph: Jorge Cabrera/Reuters

There is no chance that a trade agreement between the United States and Britain will pass Congress if Brexit undermines the Good Friday peace agreement between Ireland and Northern Ireland, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has said.

“Whatever form it takes, Brexit cannot be allowed to imperil the Good Friday agreement, including the seamless border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland,” Pelosi said.

Her comments follow those made by Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, who said on a visit to London this week that Britain and the US could sign sector-by-sector free trade deals before a comprehensive agreement as a way of helping the UK cope with the consequences of leaving the EU on 31 October in a no-deal Brexit.

Bolton said the micro-deals, focusing on industries such as car manufacturing, could be negotiated quickly, and insisted they would receive overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress.

“The ultimate end result is a comprehensive trade agreement covering all trading goods and services,” he said. “But to get to that you could do it sector by sector, and you can do it in a modular fashion. In other words, you can carve out some areas where it might be possible to reach a bilateral agreement very quickly, very straightforwardly.”

Bolton was speaking after meeting Boris Johnson and senior British officials on Monday.

Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have previously warned that any future US-UK trade deal would almost certainly be blocked if Brexit affected the Irish border and jeopardised peace in Northern Ireland.