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Britain Awaits Word From Biden Team on Trade Talks

Natalie Liu

   British diplomats are anxiously awaiting Senate confirmation of
   Katherine Tai as America's new U.S. trade representative, in hopes of
   early progress on a U.S.-Britain trade agreement to reset the
   relationship following Britain's departure from the European Union.

   Karen Pierce, British ambassador to the United States, told a recent
   audience at American University in Washington that there had been
   "successive rounds of formal talks" with the previous administration of
   President Donald Trump and that informal working groups have continued
   to discuss details of a possible agreement.

   "When Katherine Tai, the new USTR, is confirmed, we will need to talk
   to her about getting back to the formal stage," Pierce said. "We would
   like to do that."

   At the time of the Brexit campaign, which led to Britain's withdrawal
   from the EU, the pro-Brexit camp had argued that the breakup would
   leave London free to negotiate a favorable pact with a sympathetic
   Trump-led administration in Washington.

   But President Joe Biden declared during his campaign last year that he
   would not enter into any new trade deals until necessary investments
   had been made at home. Now, Pierce said, that leaves open "the question
   as to what happens to trade deals already in the making, like the U.K.
   one."

   The British envoy pointed out that Britain and the U.S. are among each
   other's biggest trading and investment partners, and it would benefit
   both "to cement that and enhance it in a deal, but we need to see what
   the Biden administration has to say."

   Theodore R. Bromund, a specialist in Anglo-American relations at the
   Heritage Foundation in Washington, said the Biden administration has
   every right to review what its predecessors have done but that it has
   essentially three choices.

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