Joe Biden will meet with Rishi Sunak in Belfast on Wednesday to discuss Northern Ireland’s economic potential, but the US president’s brief visit underscored the fact that the UK prime minister’s new Brexit plan has failed to end the region’s political deadlock.
On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden will observe the 25th anniversary of Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace agreement in Belfast. Highlighting his “strong desire” to enhance US investment there in discussions with political leaders.
Biden, who is fiercely proud of his Irish ancestry, will spend just over a half-day in the UK region. Before heading south to the Irish Republic for two and a half days of speeches and meetings with authorities and distant relatives.
The brief stay in Belfast comes against the backdrop of the latest political impasse. In which the devolved power sharing government, a crucial component of the 1998 peace agreement. Which has not met in more than a year owing to a disagreement over post-Brexit trade arrangements.
As Mr Biden stepped off the plane with US Special Envoy for Northern Ireland Joe Kennedy. While Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Chris Heaton-Harris was also present.
Later, the leaders of Northern Ireland’s major political parties will meet with Mr Biden before he delivers a talk at Ulster University’s new £350 million Belfast campus.
The Stormont power sharing Assembly, which was established as part of the peace agreement, is now closed due to the DUP. Northern Ireland’s main unionist party, protesting post-Brexit trading arrangements.
However, the White House said there will not be a formal group meeting with the leaders.
Meeting with Rishi Sunak
The meeting between Biden and Sunak takes place in Belfast. Just months after the UK and EU clinched the so-called Windsor framework, a deal on post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland.
Mr Sunak will not attend Mr Biden’s keynote speech. With Downing Street on Tuesday denying that the engagement between the pair would be “low-key”.
The UK government had hoped that the Windsor accord would clear the way for Stormont power-sharing to be restored in time for Biden’s visit. Analysts, though, described the region’s political impasse as a “embarrassment.”
“There is no local power-sharing in Northern Ireland, and an American president cannot gloss over that fact,” said Jon Tonge, a politics lecturer at the University of Liverpool.
The meeting on Wednesday will be the two leaders’ third in-person meeting since Sunak became prime minister last year. They will also meet at the G7 summits in Japan in May and Washington in June.
