US Congress to block trade deal with UK if Irish peace compromised

American congressmen and diplomats warned that it would block any US-UK trade deal after Brexit if the divorce with the European Union affected the Irish border, putting the peace in Northern Ireland at risk.

US President Donald Trump promised the two countries could strike “a very substantial trade agreement” that would increase trade “four or five times” and the UK Prime Minister claimed it would be a way of offsetting the economic costs of leaving the EU.

Nonetheless, the deal could be rejected by a hostile Congress opposed to the UK taking the risk of endangering the 1998 Good Friday agreement that secures an open border and peace across Ireland.

“The American dimension to the Good Friday agreement is indispensable,” said Richard Neal, who is co-chair of the 54-strong Friends of Ireland caucus in Congress. “We oversee all trade agreements as part of our tax jurisdiction".

He also pointed out that such a complex trade deal could take four or five years, even without the Northern Ireland issue.

“I would have little enthusiasm for entertaining a bilateral trade agreement with the UK, if they were to jeopardise the agreement.”

Pete King, the Republican co-chair of the Friends of Ireland group also said his party would have no problem in defying Trump on this issue.

“I would think anyone who has a strong belief in Northern Ireland and the Good Friday agreement the open border would certainly be willing to go against the president,” King said.

Johnson who vowed to exit the EU before 31 October with or without a deal has requested the EU negotiate a new Brexit deal which scraps the backstop arrangement in Ireland to protect the open borders.

The new PM has argued that the backstop would tie the UK and the EU in trade arrangements indefinitely such that according to the Guardian Johnson has refused to meet EU leaders until the backstop is scrapped.

The Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar reportedly spoke on the telephone with Johnson insisting that the backstop was necessary and the existing Withdrawal Agreement was not up for renegotiation, saying that the two positions were fixed and incompatible.