Northern Ireland Protocol overhaul threatens trade deal
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The UK threatens to overhaul Northern Ireland Protocol, and the US threatens to end the free trade deal with the UK if it rewrites the protocol.
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Northern Ireland
On Friday, Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin urged the UK government to stand by its post-Brexit trade commitment with Northern Ireland. Washington had previously warned London that its brinkmanship with Europe is a threat to peace.
Martin visited Belfast following resentment at a UK pledge to radically overhaul the Northern Ireland Protocol which was agreed upon during the Brexit deal the UK had with Europe.
Unionists in Northern Ireland are infuriated by the requirement for checks on goods arriving from England, Scotland, and Wales. They claimed that these actions will drive the wedge between the province and the rest of the UK.
The new government in Belfast has been suspended as a result of this feud as the unionists refused to join a new power-sharing government in Belfast.
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"There is no substitute for a substantive series of negotiations between the European Union and the United Kingdom government in respect of solving issues in relation to the protocol," Martin told reporters in the Northern Ireland capital.
He further insisted that a negotiated settlement could resolve the current issue.
Previously, Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the US House of Representatives, warned the UK that it could lose its free trade deal if it rewrites the protocol. She argued that if the UK decides to undermine the 1998 Good Friday Accord, which ended decades of bloodshed, Congress will refuse to support a bilateral agreement with the UK.
