Fears of Brexit undermine US-UK trade agreement

The US is delaying a deal to remove Trump’s temporary stock prices on steel and aluminum in the UK due to concerns over Washington’s threat to London to change post-Brexit trade rules in Northern Ireland.

Brussels and Washington have repeatedly warned London that unconstitutional changes in the EU-UK deal that sealed Britain’s exit from the bloc in 2020 could threaten peace on the Irish island.

Speaking to the Financial Times, the head of the US Department of Commerce said talks with the UK on lowering steel prices could not continue.

He cited US concerns over Britain’s threat to introduce Article 16, a post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol that extends part of the UK from the EU and suspended checks on trade going to Northern Ireland from the UK. .

Washington told the UK why it had stopped, the merger said. Three people familiar with the matter also said the negotiations were strained after being pressured by Congress over threats to the UK to launch the protest.

The Boris Johnson government has requested Article 16 if an agreement has not been reached with Brussels to end what it says are trade barriers between Great Britain and Northern Ireland based on the protocol. Even the most recent signs that the UK has softened his Ideally, Downing Street insists that the election remain on the table.

EU and US he agreed to stop tax on billions of dollars worth of steel and aluminum in October.

The deal provides relief from Trump’s 25 percent stake on steel and 10 percent aluminum for manufacturers in Europe, but leaves steel producers in the UK at risk because they still face significant work on exports to the US. Return operations in the UK to US bourbon whiskey and other items have remained in place.

Martha Dalton, a UK brewery who co-founded the Bourbon Alliance to represent the companies, said union members were “deeply concerned about the failure of the” negotiations “. “We were hoping that the trade-off between the US and the EU would bring good news to our UK members,” he added.

Under the Brexit agreement, Northern Ireland remained in the EU’s single stock market to close trade barriers on the Irish island. Instead, all goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland must comply with EU regulations, which means increased paperwork and delayed shipping.

The EU has said that this will reduce regulations, but London says the proposal is flawed and has instead threatened to introduce Article 16.

The issue has attracted the attention of many Irish people from the US Congress, who have repeatedly called on the UK to honor the Good Friday Convention 1998 which ended the region’s 30-year conflict. In November, Democratic law enforcement officials publicly warned that by threatening to introduce Article 16, the UK threatened to disrupt trade relations and “hard-earned peace”.

Joe Biden, US President, told Johnson recently in September not to allow the post-Brexit conflict with Europe to disrupt peace on the Irish island.

The National Security Council at the White House stressed that “there is no connection” between the talks and the UK’s view of the Northern Ireland protocol.

The commercial department declined to comment on the interviews FT saw. He also noted in the past that the United States and the United Kingdom have been “deeply involved in the bilateral and international affairs related to iron and aluminum”.

The U.S. Department of Commerce said negotiations with the UK were ongoing.

The UK Department for Trade says: “We do not see any connection with this issue and the Northern Ireland policy and it will not affect the UK approach. UK. “

It added that the department had “frequent discussions with US business representative Katherine Tai and trade secretary Gina Raimondo on the matter” and was still looking to “approve a ruling that saw the cost of remittances removed”.