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The head of a US congressional delegation has expressed confidence the “challenges” around the Northern Ireland Protocol “can be negotiated” - but warned America will be “unwavering as is necessary” in its support of The Belfast Agreement.
Richard Neal is overseeing a nine-strong team from the US House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee and is in Ireland for a four-day trade visit.
The delegates will travel to the North this week to meet with leaders of the main political parties as the Stormont impasse continues.
The North is without a functioning power sharing administration after the DUP refused to elect a Speaker in its protest at the protocol, the part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement which avoided a hard border on the island of Ireland by placing a customs and regulatory border in the Irish Sea.
Speaking in Co Kerry on Sunday, Mr Neal admitted he had “some very hard conversations” with the UK government at the weekend after its foreign secretary Liz Truss last week signalled plans to overhaul parts of the post-Brexit trade deal.
He described the United States as a “guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement”.
“We have made the argument that the Good Friday Agreement has worked and has worked quite well. We don’t want to see it disturbed,” the congressman said.
“We’re now coming up on the 25th anniversary…and recall that everybody gave up something to put to rest the longest standing political dispute of the western world.
“So I recounted that before Secretary Truss yesterday…We don’t want to see anything disturbed and we intend to be as unwavering as is necessary.”
Mr Neal said he believed any issues around the protocol can be resolved through talks.
“That was the clear message from Brussels, they’re ready to negotiate,” he said.
“A clear message that we offered to the UK: if they want to negotiate and you say you want to negotiate, there should be negotiation.”
He added that the United States’ Government’s views are clear: “President (Joe) Biden, Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi and I have made our position known. Nothing can jeopardise the Good Friday Agreement or any sort of return to a hard border.
“…Whatever challenges that are offered by the protocol, we think can be negotiated.”
Ms Truss met with the US delegation on Saturday ahead of its trip to Ireland and said the UK had a “cast-iron commitment” to The Belfast Agreement.
Meanwhile, DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said that implementing the protocol in full would result in “an economic tsunami” hitting Northern Ireland.
Responding to a tweet from a member of the US House of Representatives, Mr Donaldson claimed the act of calling for the full implementation of the trade deal was “such folly”.
DUP Assembly member Gordon Lyons said his party looked forward to meeting the bipartisan congressional delegation, but that representatives “must recognise” that the protocol had undermined The Belfast Agreement, which he claimed representatives had “continually” misunderstood.
“It is high time the American administration recognised the fundamental importance of securing the support of both unionists and nationalists,” he said.
“Without such support, devolution cannot function.”