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British officials have been unable to meet with a single high-level member of Joe Biden’s foreign policy team in recent weeks, hampering Downing Street’s preparations for what could happen if the Democratic candidate wins the next election. week.
Foreign Office staff hoped to meet with Biden’s closest foreign policy advisers in the run-up to the November 3 presidential election, but senior officials in London and Washington said the UK had been rejected as part of a broader strategy for your team to avoid meeting with foreign governments during the campaign.
The lack of contact has made it difficult for the Boris Johnson administration to plan what might happen if Biden wins, as polls predict. Johnson has formed a strong bond with Donald Trump, the US president, and some in London are concerned that they have failed to foster such close ties with his opponent, which could put the future of a trade deal between. USA
“Biden’s team is being very cautious with their contacts, especially after everything related to Russia in the last elections,” said a British official. Trump has been embroiled in scandal since the beginning of his presidency over allegations about connections between his 2016 campaign and Russian officials.
A Biden official said none of the former vice president’s top foreign policy officials, Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, had made “any substantial contact with British officials.”
Johnson’s relationship with Trump, who backed Brexit and calls his British counterpart “Britain Trump,” is much closer. Downing Street hoped that goodwill between the two leaders would help pave the way for a trade deal, London’s top priority when it comes to its relations with Washington.
But with Biden leading nine points in the polls just over a week before the election, Johnson’s advisers worry that momentum toward a trade deal will soon be lost.
The main problem, say those involved in trade negotiations, is time.
Both parties are working on a very tight deadline, as a US law regulating the ratification of trade agreements expires in July. That law allows trade deals to be processed quickly in Congress, but to be covered by it, an agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom must be in effect in April, just four months after a new president takes office.
As a result, British officials have been trying to come up with business proposals that are more likely to win Biden’s approval, such as including stricter protections for the environment and workers’ rights.
“We need to be able to switch to a new administration and say, ‘Look, we’re almost done, would you like to bidenize this deal?’” Said a UK official. “He can have a little more work, a little more environment, and he can claim that as an early victory.”
British diplomats accept, however, that if Biden comes to power, securing a trade deal with the UK is unlikely to be high on their agenda. Dan Ikenson, director of trade policy studies at the Cato Institute, said: “The UK is desperate for a deal that the likely incoming US government won’t care too much about.”
Instead, many believe that Biden is likely to follow Obama’s lead in making Berlin his main relationship in Europe. “Biden is an old-fashioned Atlanticist,” said John Kerr, a former British ambassador to Washington. “But [Angela] Merkel and Merkel’s successor will be the main interest in America. “
Even if a deal can be reached, it could still be frustrated if the UK leaves the EU without a deal, or with a deal that American politicians believe undermines the Good Friday Agreement, the peace agreement that resolved three decades of violence. sectarian in Ireland.
Biden, who is tremendously proud of his Irish roots, has publicly warned it would make a trade deal contingent on respecting the Northern Ireland peace plan. And even under a second Trump administration, Democratic members of Congress, many of whom have Irish roots, also plan to veto any trade deal they believe threatens the peace deal.
Sam Lowe, principal investigator at the Center for European Reform, said: “The United States has a special relationship with a country, but it is Ireland, not the United Kingdom.”
Despite this, Johnson is closer to Biden on many political issues than he is to Trump, including the environment, Iran, and multilateralism in general. The UK is chairing both the G7 and the UN climate talks in 2021, and Number 10 hopes to use those positions to focus on those issues.
Simon Fraser, former director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said: “On defense spending and NATO they will try to re-engage the United States with more enthusiasm in the NATO alliance. They will look for ways to get the United States back into multilateralism, for example in support of international institutions like the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization. “
However, when it comes to diplomacy with China, while the combative nature of relations between Washington and Beijing is likely to ease under Biden’s presidency, it is unlikely that he will adopt a radically different political position than his predecessor. .
“The United States has turned anti-China,” Kerr argued. “The fear of losing the hegemony of the United States will be the same under Trump or Biden.”
British officials accept that given Biden’s team’s de facto ban on meeting with foreign governments, they will have to act quickly to secure high-level meetings after he becomes president if he wins the election.
But some warn that the combination of the UK’s declining influence in Europe and Johnson’s perceived closeness to Trump will make it difficult.
A former British diplomat said: “Every British Prime Minister aspires to be the first foreign visitor to the Oval Office when there is a new President. But I would be surprised if Boris Johnson was the first call from the head of government that Biden would return if he won. “
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