Joe Biden reiterated on Tuesday the "United States' commitment to preserve peace and prosperity" in Northern Ireland, at the start of his four-day trip to Belfast and Dublin to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Despite the outbreaks of violence in Derry and the "severe risk" alert for terrorist attacks, the US president said he felt "more than comfortable" with his expected visit to the land of his ancestors.
The second Catholic president in US history (the first was Kennedy) plans to meet with the local leaders of the five major political parties, ahead of his speech tomorrow on the Ulster University campus. The North American Administration has not hidden its concern about the political paralysis for almost a year due to the refusal of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to form a unity government together with Sinn Féin, winner in the last elections.
Biden will dispatch with the leaders after meeting with the "premier" Rishi Sunak, to whom he will convey the willingness of the United States to "preserve the gains of the last 25 years and support the vast economic potential for the benefit of the two communities." The president is expected to take advantage of the visit to announce a new battery of North American investments in sectors such as "fintech" and cybersecurity, which have made Belfast one of the engines of the British economy.
Sunak has yet to rebuild the "special relationship" with Biden, seriously damaged during Liz Truss's brief tenure due to economic discrepancies and the problems created by the Irish Protocol, finally supplanted by the Windsor Agreement, which has not yet achieved soften the iron resistance of unionists to remain in the "legislative orbit" of the EU after Brexit.
Downing Street came up against the information about the supposed request from the White House to downplay the bilateral meeting with Sunak and leave it in a simple cafe. "The Prime Minister and President Biden will meet twice (Tuesday and Wednesday) and discuss matters of common interest," a British government spokesman said. "We continue to have an incredibly positive working relationship with the US government."
Joe Biden aspires to claim US influence in the peace process with his visit and pick up in his own way the baton from Bill Clinton and Senator George Mitchell, whose role as mediator was key 25 years ago. The US president is assisted by his own envoy to Northern Ireland, Joe Kennedy III (Robert Kennedy's grandson), who recently held a St. Patrick's Day conclave with Northern Irish companies now clamoring for an "economic" Good Friday Agreement. .
The possibility that Biden's visit serves to unblock the political paralysis in Ulster is, however, rather remote, given the skepticism that the influence of the Irish "lobby" in Washington traditionally arouses in unionist ranks.
Biden initially intended to visit the Stormont local Assembly, inactive for 11 months due to the veto of the unionists. In return, the presidential entourage has planned a brief meeting at the last minute with the leaders of Sinn Féin, the DUP, the Alliance Party, the Ulster Unionists Party (UUP) and the Social Democratic and Labor Party (SLP).
It will be before his massive speech on Wednesday and also before leaving for the Republic of Ireland, where he will speak before Parliament and will have a more extensive agenda, including visits to the relatives of his great-grandfather James Finnegan in the border town of Carlingford and the farewell in County Mayo, from where one of the largest waves of immigrants left during the Great Irish Famine.
Former "premier" Tony Blair has meanwhile described Joe Biden's visit to Northern Ireland as "very significant" and has stressed the importance of "using American influence in the peace process in a careful and sensitive manner." "There is a difference between influence and pressure," warned the former Labor leader, from his own experience in the Good Friday Agreement. "While the former tends to be positive, the latter can be negative."
"If I learned anything about the unionists in their day, it is that it is useless to pressure them to do something they deeply disagree with," warned Blair, who praised the role of Bill Clinton and his ability "to strategically understand what was the right moment and the right place.
Blair echoed recent calls to review one of the most problematic points of the Friday Agreement: the formation of unity or "power-sharing" governments between unionists and republicans, which has caused power vacuums for nine of the last 25 years. . The former "premier" has warned that any modification of the agreement must be made by consensus and warned against the temptation to "bypass" the DUP, politically isolated but still influential as the second political force in Ulster.
Meanwhile, the Northern Ireland police have implemented a security device unprecedented in the last decade, with the arrival of 300 reinforcement agents from other parts of the country. The anti-terrorism alert rose to the maximum level last week ("severe risk") for the first time in 12 years and fearing attacks by the New IRA, the group formed in 2012 by dissidents who do not abide by the peace process.
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