INTRODUCTION
In October of 2021, in response to reporters asking about the role of the United States during increased tensions over a possible hardened border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, then Brexit Minister Lord David Frost remarked that “[The United States as] outsiders are kind of interested observers, but not more than that.”1 The British government’s attitude contrasted sharply with the outlook of the Americans. On March 16, 2022, Nancy Pelosi said, “If Brexit undermines the Good Friday accord, there will be absolutely no chance of a US-UK trade agreement passing the Congress.”2 As the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Pelosi had immense influence on the proceedings of trade deal negotiations on behalf of the United States due to her close professional relationship with President Joseph Biden, as well as her sway over the influential House Committee on Ways and Means that will have the final say on the actualization of any trade deal.3 The attitude of the British government, as expressed by Lord Frost only months before, did not consider, at least publicly, the inordinate impact its relations with Ireland would have on its relations with the United States.
Although these opposing comments do not represent the full spectrum of opinions surrounding the United States-United Kingdom trade agreement negotiations, they establish the argument. On the one hand, the United Kingdom is engaged in trade negotiations with the European Union following its decision to leave the single market system on January 31, 2020, due to the British exit, known as Brexit.4 On the other, the United Kingdom has pursued a new trade agreement with the United States in hopes of establishing a bilateral arrangement that could bolster the United Kingdom’s already strong trade relationship with the United States. At first glance, the two sets of trade negotiations appear independent of each other; closer inspection indicates the contrary. Officials in the United States remain deeply invested in the protection of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, a landmark peace agreement for the island of Ireland.5 Britain’s exit from the European Union puts that landmark peace accord at risk, and further British Government actions through its negotiations with the European Union have cast its future even further in doubt. To maintain the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement, the United Kingdom and European Union agreed to the Northern Ireland Protocol in 2018. However, key Brexit officials in the United Kingdom have put strain on the Protocol, creating a state of unease as to whether both the Good Friday Agreement and Northern Ireland Protocol will stand the test of Brexit.
This paper will argue that United States officials with oversight or influence on any trade agreement are willing to forego some economic gain that might result from a bilateral trade agreement with the United Kingdom in favor of securing the safety of the Northern Ireland Protocol and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement it protects. These officials have extensive historical, familial, or duty-driven investment in a peaceful Ireland. As such, they consider the opportunity cost of relinquishing a potential trade deal to be well worth maintaining the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland Protocol, and sustained peace in Ireland. A threat to any one of these three would indicate a position taken by the United Kingdom that is incompatible with a strengthened trade relationship with the United States.
In 2017, having just helped to deliver a referendum vote that would lead to the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, then Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Boris Johnson counted on the certainty of a United Kingdom-United States trade agreement as an outcome of the newly independent alignment of the United Kingdom. Johnson visited then President-Elect Donald Trump, when he said, “we hear that we’re first in line to do a great free trade deal with the United States.”6 At that time, Johnson would have had every right to expect an expedient trade deal beneficial to both the United Kingdom and United States. Whereas President Obama had voiced his concerns over the United Kingdom’s potential departure from the European Union and had stated that the United Kingdom would fall at the “back of the queue” for a new trade deal should Brexit come to pass, the incoming Trump Administration was far less hesitant and much more open to negotiations.7 With the transition from the Obama to the Trump administration came a parallel shift in the outlook of the United States toward Brexit, and subsequently, its willingness to broker a new trade deal with the United Kingdom. The new administration, with its focus on business and an America First agenda, affirmed its support for such an arrangement. Former Senator Bob Corker, at that time the Republican chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, said that a trade deal “would be our priority.”8 Even President Trump expressed his preference toward the United Kingdom in 2017 with a tweet that reads “Britain, a longtime U.S. ally, is very special!”9 President Trump also stated, this time in 2019, that such a trade deal could result in “three to four, five times” as much trade between the two countries as under the current arrangement.14 Nevertheless, the beginning of the Biden Administration in January of 2021, which was accompanied by much more prominent pro-Irish sentiment, brought negotiations for the expected trade agreement to a halt.
A trade deal would make economic sense, or at the very least provide some benefit for the United States. Nevertheless, due to the United States’ need to remain a guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, the emotional investment of top officials in Ireland, and Joe Biden’s pro-Irish administration, more recent policy undertones have demonstrated a preferential bias toward its relationship with Ireland over the US-UK special relationship’s ability to guarantee a new trade deal with the United Kingdom. In short, this bias, founded in a complicated history, leads the United States to prioritize political interest over potential economic gain. In order to understand why this American investment in Ireland’s future exists, it is necessary to look into the recent past at the interwoven histories of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland starting at the partition of Ireland into the sovereign Irish Free State and Northern Ireland under the United Kingdom in 1921.
PARTITION
In 1920, the Government of Ireland Act separated Ireland, a country in a state of revolution following the Easter Rising of 1916, and subsequent 1919 renewal of violence, into two distinct geographical regions, both of which were intended to exist under a state of Home Rule.11 These regions would be known as Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. Northern Ireland was characterized by a large Protestant majority that sympathized with the crown. Throughout the war, the fiercest resistance to English dominance over Ireland occurred in the southernmost, largely Catholic, counties of Ireland. These counties refused to accept the decree of Home Rule that resulted from the Government of Ireland Act, favoring Irish sovereignty. In 1921, the Anglo-Irish Treaty called for the creation of the Irish Free State effective in 1922.12 The treaty did, however, allow for the Northern Ireland Parliament, established by the Government of Ireland Act in 1920, to vote to recuse itself from entry into the Free State. This resulted in the demarcation of what would become Northern Ireland, six northern counties that had a strong unionist, or pro-British, Protestant majority. The Irish Free State would go on to become the Republic of Ireland in 1949.13 Unfortunately, a substantial Catholic minority remained in Northern Ireland, which only built upon existing friction between the ruling Ulster Unionist Party and the largely nationalist Catholics.
This discrepancy in demographics led to a considerably disproportionate standard of living for the Catholics in Northern Ireland. Catholics faced difficulty in acquiring jobs and finding affordable housing when compared with their Protestant neighbors.14 Catholics participated in a civil rights movement in the 1960s, inspired in part by the Civil Rights Movement in the United States occurring at the same time. As protests and discontent grew, police cracked down on the demonstrating Catholics, and in 1969 the British deployed their military to Northern Ireland. These tensions came to a head at the close of the decade and gave way to a period of prolonged violence, terrorism, and distrust widely known as The Troubles.
THE TROUBLES
For a period of thirty years, sectarian violence characterized by domestic and state sponsored terrorism plagued Northern Ireland. As Britain cracked down on social unrest expressed through protests in the sixties with its military, Catholic militias—such as the Irish Republican Army (IRA)—fought back violently against the British Army and Irish Protestant groups, such as the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Defense Association. Groups on both sides perpetuated terrible acts including car bombings and reprisal killings from the sixties well into the nineties. Unionist rule in Northern Ireland, which was aided by the British government at Westminster, kept a tight grip over the region by establishing checkpoints and erecting walls while violence overtook many parts of Northern Ireland. Members of Northern Ireland’s communities developed rampant mistrust of those in other groups, as well as a strong distrust of government and other authorities. Throughout The Troubles, Irish America often played a financial role in the violence, driven by pro-IRA sentiment. Many Irish Americans identified with the cause of the Irish Republicans in Northern Ireland, which resulted in successful bouts of fundraising in the United States for the cause of a reunified Ireland.15
By the end of The Troubles, civilians accounted for approximately fifty-four percent of the more than 3,500 deaths and sixty-eight percent of the approximately 47,500 injured.16 The Troubles live on in the collective memory of Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States as individuals on both sides still seek to heal from and reckon with the horrific events of those thirty years.17 Calls for peace from Irish and Northern Irish leaders, as well as high profile American officials such as President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, captured the mainstream discourse on Northern Ireland and pushed Northern Ireland away from a state of violence and toward peace. One such early initiative that somewhat softened relations between Ireland and Great Britain was the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, which recognized greater local authority in Northern Ireland.
In 1994, John Hume, leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, and Martin McGuinness, an organizer and leader of Sinn Féin, at that time the political wing of the IRA, would deliver on one of the first ceasefires and major steps toward a peaceful Northern Ireland.18 The ceasefire would last until 1996, and resume in 1997, leading to the eventual Good Friday Agreement of 1998. These men came from opposing nationalist camps in Northern Ireland with Hume strictly opposed to the violence and McGuinness more sympathetic to the cause of the IRA. Nevertheless, their mutually held respect for human dignity and their desire to see a halt to the violence of Irishman against Irishman inspired them to reach a consensus for peace. Their vision moved talks of a longer lasting formalized peace accord closer to reality. That ceasefire paved the way for the brokering of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, also known as the Belfast Agreement, which would establish peace in Northern Ireland that celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2023.
The leadup to the 1994 ceasefire would prove to be one of the first instances of American involvement in a push for peace. As Gerry Adams, former leader of Sinn Féin, wrote twenty-five years after the ceasefire, “Some of the [IRA] leadership were against a cessation. They had been very frank about that. It was going to be a close call.”19 He would go on to describe the IRA army council insisting on reassurances of the good faith of the United States. This included a visa for former leader Joe Cahill, as well as the Irish Republic’s ability to broker deals in the United States. Cahill had hoped to visit the United States in order to make his plea in favor of the IRA and the nationalist cause. Adams wrote, “Fundamentally it was a test to see if the Irish Government was prepared to take on the British and if it could win such a political battle with the British within the US administration. It would also be an important indicator of how seriously the Clinton administration intended to take the issue of peace in Ireland.”20 Cahill would go on to receive his visa from the Clinton administration, and the IRA army council would agree to the ceasefire. Even before the Good Friday Agreement, American officials demonstrated their desire for Irish peace and willingness to take part in the process that would lead to the 1998 accords.
THE GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT
On April 10, 1998, the parties in Northern Ireland, most notably the Ulster Unionist Party and the Social Democratic and Labour Party, signed the Good Friday Agreement, ending the Troubles and establishing a framework for a power sharing agreement in Northern Ireland that would respect both sides of the conflict. John Hume, the SDLP Leader, and David Trimble, his counterpart from the UUP, won the Nobel Prize for Peace that year for their efforts in bringing peace to a violence-ridden Northern Ireland. The United States served as a broker in this landmark achievement. Powerful Americans took an active role in this process. President Bill Clinton made inroads as early as 1994 with his work granting a visa for Joe Cahill. During a trip to Ireland in 1995 Clinton urged peace in addresses in both Londonderry and Dublin.12 He also sent former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME) as a special envoy to fill the role as chairman for the talks that led to the Good Friday Agreement. Regarding American domestic politics, Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill worked hard with the establishment of the Congressional Friends of Ireland Caucus in 1981, and he proved invaluable in building consensus within the United States that peace in Ireland ought to be a priority. Another founding member of that Caucus was current President Joe Biden, who pushed President Clinton to engage further with Ireland in the 1990s through his role on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.22 These and many other Americans put pressure on the Irish and the British so that the agreement brought together leaders from the unionist and nationalist camps, and resulted in a framework where, according to Congressman Richard Neal, the current Democratic Chair of the Friends of Ireland Caucus, “everyone had to make sacrifices.”23 The Good Friday Agreement did not ask concessions only from certain groups, but it leveled the playing field by ensuring that each party compromised in favor of a lasting peace. It also provided a path for self- determination should a referendum in both Northern Ireland and Ireland concur on a United Ireland.
Amanda Sloat, a former Brookings expert, noted the participatory nature of the agreement in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy, and the Environment in October of 2019:
"The clever compromise at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement enabled people to take a break from identity politics: unionists remained part of the U.K. and felt reassured that the province’s status could only be changed at the ballot box, while nationalists felt Irish and had a greater say in local affairs.24"
This compromise-driven approach served as a mechanism to grant concessions to each side while also reinforcing the message that a continued state of violence would do no good for the people of Northern Ireland. It allowedfor both nationalists and unionists to derive a sense of identity and belonging from the political structure of Northern Ireland while removing the tribalistic nature of the violence from the narrative. When officials from the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Northern Ireland signed the Good Friday Agreement in Belfast, Ireland took a collective final step toward more lasting peace. This commitment to peace was made possible through contributions of Americans who resolved to contribute to ending the struggles faced by the Irish people during The Troubles.
Irish leaders from many camps still echo their appreciation for the involvement of American leaders in the achievement of peace in Ireland at the turn of the twenty-first century. Today in Ireland, Bill Clinton remains one of the most popular American presidents. Special Envoy George Mitchell would go on to secure a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998 due to his visionary input in chairing the conversations that led to the Good Friday Agreement. On the first anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in 1999, the news outlet Irish America Magazine ran a story on Special Envoy Mitchell that included two revealing quotations. First, Gerry Adams said, “Senator Mitchell’s role was indispensable to the success of the negotiation process and to the securing of the Good Friday Agreement. There can be no doubt that without his patience and stamina the outcome could have been very much different.”25 Coming from a different perspective, David Kerr, a key figure for the Unionists during and after the talks, said of Mitchell, “He was extremely capable and fair: a very genuine person who gave everything he had to making the process work. He acquitted himself very well and did the American people proud. I don’t think anybody else could have done what he did, it was a remarkable political balancing act.”26 Needless to say, Irish understanding of the American involvement in negotiating the Good Friday Agreement and in maintaining the following peace is widespread among both unionists and nationalists. Nearly twenty years after the Belfast Agreement, the United Kingdom voted via referendum to leave the European Union. Brexit threatens the integrity of the peace agreement and tests just how important the Good Friday Agreement and the relationship with Ireland are to those with power in the United States today.
American involvement as more than just interested observers in Ireland and Northern Ireland was invaluable to the success of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and helps secure its continued strength. The United States and its leaders have acted as trustees of that peace, contrary to Lord Frost’s claim that they are merely “observers.”27 As evidenced by Gerry Adams’s words remembering the 1994 ceasefire and the Anglo- Irish Agreement’s American influences, the American commitment to Irish peace began years before the Good Friday Agreement.28 Admittedly, many in the United States were complicit in the violence of the Troubles. Regardless, when it mattered most and peace became achievable, those in the United States with the power to do so delivered. This duality created by both complicity in the violence and involvement in the peace ensured that the United States would be a witness and stakeholder in the continued upholding of the ceasefires and the eventual Good Friday Agreement. Understandably, The Troubles remain an exceedingly sensitive topic in Ireland and throughout the United Kingdom. It is the root cause for much of the tension surrounding Brexit and the Protocol as Brexit challenges the Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to The Troubles.
BREXIT
It was the vote heard ’round the world. Brexit served as the catalyst for the current uncertainty of the Good Friday Agreement’s status that has challenged United States officials to decide whether the economics of a new trade agreement or the certainty of peace in Northern Ireland takes priority. In 2016, the United Kingdom determined in a referendum by fifty-two percent to forty-eight percent that it would leave the European Union. As such, the United Kingdom became a separate entity in trade from the single market system of trade that the European Union offers. In order to reconcile differences in trade and to delineate the new rules for trade between European Union countries and the United Kingdom, the two entities entered a period of negotiations that would elucidate new arrangements now that the United Kingdom had left the single market system of the European Union. Very quickly, however, both parties recognized a grave difficulty associated with the United Kingdom’s departure.
When the United Kingdom left the European Union, it took Northern Ireland along with it. As a separate state, the Republic of Ireland remained within the EU. Consequently, any goods traversing the border from Northern Ireland to Ireland and vice versa were now considered goods traded outside of an existing trade agreement as opposed to before Brexit, when both countries were members of the single market system in the European Union. Suddenly, as Brexit took effect, there was a real cause for concern that the situation in Northern Ireland might deteriorate as it had before, and a return to the Troubles might no longer be abstract, but a full-fledged reality. Talk of a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland revived memories of attacks on checkpoints during the heights of the Troubles.29 Further, the mere thought of renewed tribalism expressed through Irish versus British identity worried those with memories of what such polarizing thought had led to in the past.
NORTHERN IRELAND PROTOCOL
The question of how to manage the newfound situation on the island of Ireland necessitated negotiations that would lead to the Northern Ireland Protocol. Historical American involvement in Northern Ireland highlights an inconsistency with Lord Frost’s statement in the fall of 2021 that the United States has no real stake in Northern Ireland.30 The United Kingdom’s attitude toward the Northern Ireland Protocol and the subsequent American responses underscores this inconsistency. American reluctance to push forward a trade deal with the United Kingdom stands as evidence that Northern Ireland remains a very worthy policy consideration for American politicians, and it is one of the few areas in which the special relationship between the United Kingdom and United States does not foster a preferential relationship for the British from the Americans.31 The fear held by American politicians of a possible return to the Troubles came to the forefront of political discourse between the countries during and after the negotiations of the Northern Ireland Protocol, and in particular, following increased threats to its implementation levied by the British Government throughout the course of 2021.
To understand the conditions in Ireland, it is important to know the nature of the Northern Ireland Protocol. The fallout from Brexit left the island of Ireland in a unique position with different standards for goods being traded existing between North and South. In 2019, the European Union and the United Kingdom reached an agreement called the Northern Ireland Protocol which would establish guidelines for checking goods shipped from the United Kingdom to Northern Ireland to avoid checks from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland. The Protocol was agreed to in addition to the other negotiations regulating Brexit. The objective of the Protocol is to quell possible tensions that could have arisen from the change in the relationship between Northern Ireland and Ireland because of Brexit, after which the two countries were removed from the same single market economic system.
The hope remained that if a relationship of open trade persisted and free exchange continued between Ireland and Northern Ireland, then there would be limited space for a resurgence of violence like that of the Troubles. Northern Ireland and Ireland enjoyed a barrier free trade relationship under the European Union before Brexit, and the Protocol is intended to maintain that state of trade. Faced with the challenges regarding commerce between states no longer in a single market economy, the European Union and United Kingdom agreed upon the Northern Ireland Protocol to protect the integrity of the near-twenty-five-year peace in Ireland following the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and to maintain continued trade between the countries.32 The Northern Ireland Protocol did include Article Sixteen, however, which presented an opportunity for either party, the United Kingdom or the European Union, to unilaterally use a workaround to the agreement temporarily.
Understandably, the Protocol has placed a strain on the relationship between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Under the framework of the Protocol, Northern Ireland’s trade with Ireland would go uninterrupted, so long as goods leaving London for Belfast were to be checked upon entry into Belfast. This developed what would become known as the Irish Sea Border, and it has upset factions in both London and Northern Ireland. Concerns include the inability of British sausage manufacturers to send their products to Northern Ireland due to food safety differences, which has stoked feelings of fear and disappointment in the arrangement.33 There is also a real possibility that the United Kingdom’s integrity may be at risk as a result of the Protocol. If Northern Ireland experiences difficulties in trade with the rest of the United Kingdom, it brings into question the actual unity of the United Kingdom. Unionists in Northern Ireland fear that Brexit has placed a strain on their already loose grip on political power. The Stormont House Elections in 2022, which favored a nationalist majority for the first time since 1921, demonstrate this devolution of a Unionist hegemony. In the near future, the Unionists fear the Northern Ireland Protocol might force the hand of Northern Ireland’s citizens to align with the Republic through a referendum vote choosing to reunite the Island as put forward in the framework of the Good Friday Agreement.
In response to these difficulties, both political and logistical, the British Government took a harder stance against the Protocol in 2021, maintaining that the Protocol presents an untenable compromise. The Government wishes to scrap it entirely or renegotiate it to obtain more desirable terms. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in October of 2021, “The fundamental problem for us is that it is very difficult to operate in an environment where the EU system can decide when and how many checks can be carried out across the Irish Sea.”34 At that time, and even as recently as April of 2022, Johnson had reiterated the need to reassess the agreement that his own government signed in 2019.35 He also highlighted the fact that he would be willing to trigger Article Sixteen of the Protocol, which would serve as a backdoor mechanism to leave the Protocol and continue trade at the same time.
Article Sixteen stipulates that either entity—the United Kingdom or the European Union—may take “safeguard” measures without the permission of the other.36 The document states that sufficient grounds for triggering the controversial escape clause exist when “economic, societal, or environmental difficulties” arise due to the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol.37 A further option for either party to halt the agreement would be “diversion of trade,” and this is the primary course that the British Government hopes to use to validate its argument that Article Sixteen remains a viable option.38 Recalling the point of view of the British Government, its reluctance to endorse the continuation of the Irish Sea Border makes sense, as does its willingness to consider triggering Article Sixteen. The British Government proposes these policies possibly in hopes of creating a deal for the United Kingdom with the European Union that would not place as much of a strain on the integrity of the United Kingdom across the Irish Sea.
As momentum against the Protocol overtook the United Kingdom government’s strategy at the end of 2021, polling suggested that Northern Ireland’s citizens viewed it much more favorably. A poll conducted by Queen’s University, Belfast in February of 2022 found that sixtythree percent of those who responded in Northern Ireland felt that the Northern Ireland Protocol offered “a unique set of post-Brexit economic opportunities compared to the rest of the UK.”39 The poll also found that a majority of respondents viewed the Protocol as an appropriate way of managing the situation, and as having a positive impact on Northern Ireland. It is important to note, however, that the Democratic Unionist Party, or DUP, is strongly against the Protocol and remains a powerful party in Northern Ireland, although it did lose its place as the largest party in the country to Sinn Féin during the May 2022 elections. Nevertheless, the citizens in Northern Ireland on the whole align more closely with many officials’ sentiments in the United States on the matter.
American concerns over the proceedings in 2021 do not represent a change in outlook or policy but show a continuation of a relationship that has developed over generations. The Protocol protects the Good Friday Agreement. The United States has a vested interest in maintaining the Good Friday Agreement. As a result, the United States also has an interest in maintaining the Northern Ireland Protocol. Congressman Richard Neal, who also chairs the House Committee on Ways and Means, which is responsible for fiscal oversight on any trade deal drafted by the Biden Administration, remarked on October 13, 2021 in reference to British discussions on triggering Article Sixteen that “if the argument is that you can just unilaterally abridge an agreement, it doesn’t strike me as being a very solid remedy for future trade agreements or trade partnerships.”40 However, Chairman Neal’s concerns do not come only from the perspective of a trade negotiator acting out his due diligence, but from an Irish American legislator with a real concern for the future of Irish peace, the Good Friday Agreement, and the Protocol. During Saint Patrick’s Day Celebrations in 2022, Congressman Neal only reaffirmed support for Ireland and the landmark Northern Ireland Protocol and Good Friday Agreement. On March 24, 2022, Neal stated, “we will not entertain a trade agreement if there is any jeopardy to the Good Friday Agreement.”41 In that same exchange with The Guardian, Neal further stated that “a bilateral trade agreement with the UK is desirable – there’s no question about that. I’m very open to that. But what I’m not open to is holding the Good Friday Agreement hostage over [the United Kingdom’s] domestic politics.”42 Neal’s comments demonstrate, then, that American concerns over the British Government’s threats in 2021 do not represent a change; rather, they exhibit the United States’ duty as a shareholder in the Good Friday Agreement to maintain peace in Ireland.
It is important, therefore, to ask why the United States should even desire a trade deal with the United Kingdom. To answer this question, and to support the greater claim that the United States is in some respects open to subverting its own economic gain, it is necessary to examine the existing trade relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States and the gains to be made by an expansion of that relationship through a bilateral agreement.
TRADE BETWEEN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE UNITED STATES
It only matters that the United States is using a trade deal as leverage if that trade deal is economically sound for both parties, or as Chairman Neal said, “desirable.”43 The trading relationship between the two countries is a strong one, and this section of the paper will explore that relationship and why the trade situation may be different in a post-Brexit world. The United States and the United Kingdom have enjoyed a strong economic and political relationship for almost the entire history of the United States following its departure from Great Britain through the American Revolutionary War, aside from the War of 1812 and some tariff concerns in recent decades. 44 Winston Churchill ushered in popular use of the moniker “special relationship” after the strengthening of ties between the United States and United Kingdom after World War II.45 Along with an increase in globalization and the birth of truly global markets in the twentieth century, the United States and the United Kingdom enjoyed a robust trading relationship. When the United Kingdom joined what is now the European Union on January 1, 1973, that strong trade relationship continued. However, the strength of the special relationship, specifically regarding matters concerning to Ireland, may have been misunderstood by some Brexit supporters.
During the campaign for Brexit, pro-Brexit activists and politicians framed leaving the European Union as a chance for the United Kingdom to have its cake and eat it too.46 It would remove itself from the European Union and its regulations while opening itself up to new bilateral trade arrangements that could conceivably stimulate the economy in ways that were not available under the rules of the European Union. Pro-Brexit politicians and pundits pointed to the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States as a safeguard for a guaranteed trade agreement between the two countries.47 Strong American resistance to an immediately negotiated trade deal and public support of the Irish by many American politicians underscore that this purported ease of access to the American market would not be the case for a post-Brexit United Kingdom.
Regarding trade, the special relationship holds more weight in the minds of the British than the Americans, as explained by then Irish Ambassador to the United States Dan Mulhall: “The special relationship, it’s a phrase I hear a lot from … Britain, [but] you don’t hear it so much here, it doesn’t come to the minds, that readily, of Americans.” 48 Admittedly, the United States and United Kingdom have a strong trade relationship, with nearly $262.2 billion in trade done in the four quarters before quarter three (Q3) of 2021.49 However, the exchange is not equal in its scope, which is perhaps reflected by those differing views on the importance of the special relationship. The United States imported far more from the United Kingdom than it exported in those same four quarters. In all, the United States accounted for more than sixteen percent of the total trade the United Kingdom completed in that time frame, making the United States the largest single trade partner for the United Kingdom. Conversely, the United Kingdom is the United States’ seventh largest trading partner, and only accounts for approximately four percent of yearly trade for the United States.50 With a global economy and many suppliers of goods and services, the United States does not necessarily need the bilateral agreement as much as the United Kingdom does. Notably, the European Union collectively counts as the United Kingdom’s largest trading partner, but the trade relationship has seen regular yearly decreases in extent of trade since Brexit officially took effect in 2020, thus making its relationship with the United States even more important.
Due to this imbalance and the relatively small proportion of overall trade that the United Kingdom represents for the United States, the United States and its Trade Ambassador Katherine Tai have much more leeway than the British when considering a continuation of negotiations on a bilateral trade agreement that began during the Trump Administration. In October of 2018, President Trump advised Congress that his administration would seek a trade deal with the United Kingdom.51 Formally, then-Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer began the negotiations on May 5, 2020.52 Although talks about the future of trade between the two countries continued, the change in administrations following the 2020 election and the inability of the Trump Administration to close a trade deal left the United Kingdom in a state of uncertainty as to the future of the agreement.
Ambassador Tai resumed conversations with representatives from the United Kingdom on March 21 and 22, 2022, in Baltimore, Maryland, with an additional meeting occurring in Aberdeen, Scotland, on April 25 and 26. However, Ambassador Tai did not present either meeting as a resumption of prior negotiations toward a trade deal, but rather as a series of conversations to discuss the trade outlooks and broader economic relationships of the two countries. Neither meeting yielded a consensus on the future of a new trade agreement between both parties. Following the Baltimore summit, Ambassador Tai remarked to the press that a bilateral trade agreement is “a very twentieth century tool.”53
Although this may be taken as a blanket statement against bilateral trade agreements, the full scope of Ambassador Tai’s position is not represented in this quotation alone. First, Tai served as trade counsel for the House Ways and Means Committee before her appointment by President Biden as United States Trade Representative in 2021.54 Its chairman, Richard Neal, has been one of the most outspoken advocates for Ireland in the House of Representatives. Second, it is even more important to recognize that while Ambassador Tai has the diplomatic role of negotiating the deals, any authorization of that deal and the power of the purse rests with Congressman Neal through his position as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. In summary, although Ambassador Tai holds immense sway over the process that a hypothetical United States-United Kingdom trade deal would go through, the final decision could in effect come from Congressman Neal. Neal has demonstrated through regular statements in 2021 and 2022 that the Good Friday Agreement and the upholding of the Northern Ireland Protocol remain necessary for any consideration he might make in favor of a new trade deal between the United States and United Kingdom.
Congressman Neal’s and Ambassador Tai’s comments affirm the intent of the United States to at least strongly consider a trade agreement with the United Kingdom. They are not bluffing. Their comments also underscore the seriousness with which American officials approach the American responsibility to help protect the Good Friday Agreement. Additionally, Chairman Neal’s initial quotation indicating worry at the British Government’s willingness to trigger Article Sixteen demonstrates American investment in the continued implementation of the Protocol. Americans with the authority to conduct trade deals derive value from them, as both Ambassador Tai and Chairman Neal have indicated, and the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement and the Northern Ireland Protocol is considered a prerequisite for the completion of the said trade deal. Therefore, American officials are prioritizing the historical defense of the Good Friday Agreement and a strong preference toward Ireland over an economically beneficial bilateral trade agreement with the United Kingdom.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
President Biden during the 2022 Ireland Fund Saint Patrick’s Day Gala remarked, “It’s been 165 years, like many of you — 165 years since my great-great-grandparents left County Mayo and County Louth aboard coffin ships to cross the Atlantic.”55
The spirit of Irish America is driven by family. It captures the imagination in a way that facts presented by a British diplomat might not convey. Irish peace, safeguarded by the Good Friday Agreement and the Protocol, and the island’s complicated history and relationship with Great Britain are also inherently American concerns. From parallels between the American and Irish revolutionary causes to American influences in Irish pushes for civil rights, an indelible bond between the United States and Ireland has materialized in the culture of the United States as well as its politics. In 1998, the United States seized an opportunity to make good on that relationship through the brokering of the Good Friday Agreement. In the years to follow, American diplomatic ties with Ireland would only strengthen, and when the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement was threatened by Brexit, officials in the United States countered with a threat to the special relationship as it relates to trade. When Speaker Pelosi said that “if Brexit undermines the Good Friday accord, there will be absolutely no chance of a US-UK trade agreement passing the Congress,”56 Nile Gardiner, a former aide of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s, tweeted that “@SpeakerPelosi needs to stop lecturing the British people on Brexit policy, issuing menacing threats against a US/UK trade deal, and undermining the Special Relationship.”57 Rather than a statement that would undermine the special relationship, Speaker Pelosi delivered that line in defense of American interests that have been at play in Ireland for decades. As then-Ambassador Mulhall remarked, “[the British] are rather frustrated by the fact that we [the Irish] with our rather small embassy here with twenty people – and they’ve got one with five hundred people or more – that somehow we manage to get a good outcome.”58 He continued, stating that he does not attribute that success to himself, but that he “attributes it to the fact that Americans have an instinctive understanding of Irish affairs, and it is a sentimental one and it is not that susceptible to being changed by arguments of the diplomatic kind.”59
The missing key for the British, it would seem, is not that the special relationship overall is in peril, but rather that the Irish issue is so personally interwoven into American political life that the special relationship, at least in this one instance, is superseded by the nearly mythological weight of Ireland in American culture and politics. Further, the United States is in effect a guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement. Suspension of the Northern Ireland Protocol through invocation of Article Sixteen would fundamentally challenge the Good Friday Agreement. Although the economic incentives exist, and at first glance the special relationship might influence the Biden Administration’s likelihood of finalizing a trade deal, there is just too much at stake for the United States in Ireland for it to give up the leverage afforded to it by the trade deal. After all, the United States and United Kingdom continue to enjoy remarkably close relations. Regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the two countries have been in near lockstep. The office of the spokesperson for the State Department released a factsheet in May of 2021 that emphasized “the United States has no closer Ally than the United Kingdom. Our exceptional partnership, born of common values and a shared language and history, is renewed through daily cooperation on a range of joint security, economic, and other global issues.”60 The statement was released before Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to speak at the G7 Summit that month. Similarities between the countries on China policy are striking, and the strengthening of ties between democracies of the world is a common goal of both the United Kingdom and the Biden Administration.61 Yet the British Government would be hard pressed to find an official in Washington, DC willing to honor the special relationship in regard to trade over a familial connection or historical responsibility to Ireland. That juxtaposition of priorities in Washington remains the key takeaway, and confirms that at least in this instance, sometimes family and history matter more to United States officials than the bottom line of a new trade agreement.
