There are fears that if Joe Biden wins the American presidency the trade deal could be pushed aside
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British officials are preparing a rescue strategy to save the UK-US free trade deal if Joe Biden wins the American presidency in a little more than a week amid fears talks could be pushed to one side and indefinitely delayed.
UK government figures are ready to reach out to influential people around the Democratic presidential nominee within days of a victory result and have been making a concerted effort in recent weeks to open back channels.
One push would see Britain attempt to tie the agreement to Mr Biden’s agenda of rebuilding the US economy after the pandemic and improving relationships across the Atlantic in a bid to keep talks a priority in Washington.
Another would see the UK leverage its leading role in two major multilateral forums next year, its presidency of the G7 group of nations and its hosting of the UN Climate Change Conference, to be seen as a critical international partner.
Officials are even investigating whether talks could continue in some form during what would be a “lame duck” period between the election on November 3 and the inauguration of Mr Biden on January 20 should Donald Trump lose.
The details, shared with The Telegraph by well-placed sources, comes as Whitehall braces for a potential change of US administration that would create new uncertainty about the path to the trade deal so long sought by Number 10.
A comprehensive trade agreement between Britain and America was held up by Brexiteers as a major upside to ending membership of the European Union, which barred the UK from negotiating its own deals, during the 2016 referendum.
Talks have progressed at pace since the UK left the EU in January but replacing Mr Trump, a vocal supporter of Brexit who has promised a “great” deal”, with Mr Biden, a Brexit opponent whose views on talks are unclear, could be problematic..
UK officials are careful not to prejudge the US election result but have noted Mr BIden’s eight-point poll lead over Mr Trump and are preparing for what comes next.
"No part of me is pretending the weeks and months after this election will not be tumultuous", one UK government source working on foreign policy from London conceded, while insisting Westminster was prepared.
Another well-placed source said if Mr Biden wins “we will need to position ourselves to get into a conversation [on trade talks] really quite fast”.
After the 2016 US election Britain’s Washington embassy faced criticism for failing to establish strong enough ties with Mr Trump’s campaign and officials are determined not to face the same accusation should Mr Biden claim victory.
The Biden campaign’s decision to ban staff from meeting with foreign diplomats, a reflection of the Russian election meddling scandal in 2016, has affected efforts by Britain, like every country, to build relationships.
But as the election has approached Dame Karen Pierce, the UK ambassador to the US who is close to Boris Johnson, has met for dinner and held calls with figures expected to be influential in any Biden administration.
Dame Karen Pierce has met those expected to be influential during a Biden presidency
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British diplomats have spent years maintaining good relations with US congressmen on the committees that would scrutinise the deal — it must pass Congress before it becomes law — and believe there is bipartisan support in principle.
Much attention has focussed on the public warnings by Mr Biden and senior Democratic congressmen that there will be no trade deal if Northern Ireland peace is undermined by Brexit.
There is a belief in some quarters of the UK government that such warnings, read carefully, are just a restatement of a goal that both Brussels and London publicly endorses.
The bigger threat to securing a deal is perceived to be timings. Mr Biden would likely name a new US Trade Representative, a position that needs to be confirmed by the US Senate.
He may want to change the US negotiating objectives, though UK officials would stress that the existing ones have bipartisan support so do not need major alterations.
The critical deadline looming is July, when the president effectively has to hand back the power to negotiate trade deals to Congress, which due to the US Constitution holds such powers.
Agreeing a new Trade Promotion Authority law, as it is called, to again allow the president to negotiate could be fraught due to domestic politics. At times in the past it has been delayed for years.
Convincing a Biden administration to prioritise talks so that they fill the relevant posts, agree a text and submit it to Congress before the summer would be the daunting challenge.
Failing to do so would plunge the chance of a speedy deal into uncertainty. Another route, through lengthy negotiations with Congress itself, would be possible but much more tricky.
There are fears that if Joe Biden wins the American presidency the trade deal could be pushed aside
Credit: AFP
Sir Alan Duncan, the former Tory MP who until July 2019 was the minister for the Americas, fears Mr Johnson’s moves to ally himself with Mr Trump will make embracing Mr Biden tricky.
"He so stuck his neck out as pro-Trump that it’s going to be very difficult to look pro-anyone else”, Sir Alan said of the Prime Minister.
Yet Liam Fox, the Tory MP who led UK-US trade preparations as international trade secretary until last summer, was more upbeat.
"If the Trump administration works through the details and it becomes a gift for Biden at the beginning of his presidency he might take it,” Mr Fox told The Sunday Telegraph.
Some in Washington DC are pessimistic that Mr Biden, if he wins, would prioritise securing a trade deal with Britain given other pressing issues, not least tackling the pandemic.
Max Bergmann, a senior fellow at the liberal think tank Centre of American Progress, predicted an effort would be initiated to look at UK-US trade should Mr Biden win.
But he doubted there would be major engagement early from the top of the incoming Biden administration with so many other priorities outlined during the campaign.
Mr Bergmann said: “It is just not going to be something that a new administration is going to love to deal with. This is going to be seen as the Brits creating a headache.”
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