WASHINGTON: The top Democrat in the US Congress warned Wednesday that lawmakers would block a trade pact with Britain if its exit from the EU undermines Northern Ireland’s peace accord.
President Donald Trump and senior advisers to Britain’s new Prime Minister Boris Johnson have spoken recently of fast-tracking a bilateral trade deal once Brexit is complete.
But any such agreement would need the green light from Congress, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — Trump’s political nemesis on Capitol Hill — made clear she would not play ball if the Irish peace deal were put at risk.
Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and is thus set to leave the European Union while the neighboring Republic of Ireland is a separate EU member state.
Reimposing controls along their shared border if Britain leaves without a deal — a so-called “hard Brexit” — would put the 1998 peace deal in jeopardy.
“Whatever form it takes, Brexit cannot be allowed to imperil the Good Friday Agreement, including the seamless border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland,” Pelosi said in a statement.
“If Brexit undermines the Good Friday accord, there will be no chance of a US-UK trade agreement passing the Congress.”
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement brought the decades-old Northern Ireland conflict to an end. But how to handle Northern Ireland has emerged as a core issue for Brexit negotiators.
Critics have warned that Brexit might require reimposing a hard border on the island, a move that would essentially upend the agreement that has kept peace in Northern Ireland for the past two decades.
Goods and people freely cross the border, as both countries are currently members of the EU, and the withdrawal agreement negotiated last year between London and Brussels contains a “backstop” plan to maintain this situation whatever happens with Brexit.
However, British MPs have rejected it three times and Johnson warns the backstop must go or Britain will leave the EU on October 31 without any deal.
Pelosi, a master legislator, strongly signaled that Republicans would join her Democrats in opposing a trade pact if Brexit undermines the peace deal.
“The peace of the Good Friday Agreement is treasured by the American people and will be fiercely defended on a bicameral and bipartisan basis in the United States Congress,” she said.
The Republican co-chair of the Friends of Ireland group in the US Congress, Pete King, reportedly said jeopardizing the open border was a “needless provocation” over which his party would have no hesitation defying Trump.
Those in Congress with a strong belief in Northern Ireland and the Good Friday agreement “would certainly be willing to go against the president,” King told The Guardian.
After his first phone call with the new British leader late last month, Trump said talks on a “very substantial” post-Brexit trade deal were already underway.
Last week Johnson dispatched top aides including Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to Washington in a bid to fast-track the negotiations.
And on Monday US National Security Adviser John Bolton, a hawkish Trump aide, said Washington wanted to “move very quickly” on the trade pact after Britain exits the EU.
House Democrat Brendan Boyle called Bolton’s trade talk “nonsensical” and said the comments should not be taken seriously. Boyle added on Twitter that he “strongly” supports Pelosi’s position.
Any US trade deal needs final approval from the US Congress, where political power is split: Pelosi’s Democrats control the House of Representatives, while the Senate is led by Republicans.
Dozens of US lawmakers claim Irish ancestry, and the Friends of Ireland caucus in Congress has long advocated for peace and justice in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
George Mitchell, a former US Senate majority leader with Irish roots, was president Bill Clinton’s envoy to Northern Ireland and led the all-party peace negotiations in the 1990s.
Pelosi vows to thwart US-UK trade deal if Brexit risks Irish peace
Pelosi vows to thwart US-UK trade deal if Brexit risks Irish peace
- Donald Trump and senior advisers to Britain’s new Prime Minister Boris Johnson have spoken recently of fast-tracking a bilateral trade deal once Brexit is complete
- Any such agreement would need the green light from Congress, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — Trump’s political nemesis on Capitol Hill — made clear she would not play ball if the Irish peace deal were put at risk
National security trial for Hong Kong’s Tiananmen vigil organizers to open
- Three government-vetted judges will preside over the trial, which is expected to last 75 days
HONG KONG: Two pro-democracy activists behind a group that for decades organized a vigil that commemorated people killed in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 will stand trial on Thursday, in another landmark case brought under a China-imposed national security law that has practically crushed protests in the semiautonomous Chinese city.
Critics say their case shows that Beijing’s promise to keep the city’s Western-style civil liberties intact for 50 years when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997 has weakened over time. But the city’s government said its law enforcement actions were evidence-based and strictly in accordance with the law.
Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan, former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, were charged with incitement to subversion in September 2021 under the law. They are accused of inciting others to organize, plan or act through unlawful means with a view to subvert state power, and if convicted, they face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
A third leader of the group, Albert Ho, is expected to plead guilty, his lawyer said previously. This might result in a sentence reduction.
Before sunrise, dozens of people were in line outside the court building to secure a seat in the public gallery under a cold-weather warning.
Tang Ngok-kwan, a former core member of the alliance, has been queuing since Monday afternoon. He said he wanted to show support for his former colleagues in detention.
“They use their freedom to exchange for a dignified defense,” he said. “It’s about being accountable to history.”
Former pro-democracy district councilor Chan Kim-kam, a former vigil-goer and also Chow’s friend, stayed awake the whole night outside the building.
“We need to witness this, regardless of the results,” she said.
Trial expected to last 75 days
Three government-vetted judges will preside over the trial, which is expected to last 75 days. Videos related to the alliance’s years of work will be part of the prosecution evidence.
Chow, also a lawyer defending herself, tried to throw out her case in November, arguing the prosecution had not specified what “unlawful means” were involved. But the judges rejected her bid.
The judges explained their decision on Wednesday, saying the prosecution made it clear that “unlawful means” meant ending the Chinese Communist Party’s rule and violating the Chinese constitution. The prosecution accused the defendants of promoting the call of “ending one-party rule” by inciting people’s hatred of and disgust over the state’s power, the judges said.
The prosecution, they said, had pointed to the defendants’ media interviews and public speeches related to the alliance to sustain the group’s operation and promote that call to others after the security law took effect in June 2020. Although the scope of the charge was relatively wide, the prosecutors had provided sufficient details for the defendants, they added.
The court will not allow the trial to become a tool of political suppression in the name of law, the judges said.
Prosecutors are expected to detail their case this week.
Urania Chiu, lecturer in law at Oxford Brookes University, said the case goes to the heart of freedom of expression.
“The prosecution case hinges on the argument that the Alliance’s general call for ‘bringing the one-party rule to an end’ constitutes subversion without more, which amounts to criminalizing an idea, a political ideal that is very far from being actualized,” she said.
Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director, alleged the case was about “rewriting history and punishing those who refuse to forget the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown.”
Alliance’s disbandment a blow to civil society
The alliance was best known for organizing the only large-scale public commemoration of the 1989 crackdown in China for decades. Tens of thousands of people attended it annually until authorities banned it in 2020, citing anti-pandemic measures.
After COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the park was occupied instead by a carnival organized by pro-Beijing groups. Those who tried to commemorate the event near the site were detained.
Before the alliance voted to disband in September 2021, police had sought details about the group, saying they had reasonable grounds to believe it was acting as a foreign agent. The alliance rejected the allegations and refused to cooperate.
Chow, Tang, another core member of the alliance were convicted in a separate case in 2023 for failing to provide authorities with information on the group and were each sentenced to 4 1/2 months in prison. But the trio overturned their convictions at the city’s top court in March 2025.
Chow, Lee and Ho have been in custody, awaiting the trial’s opening, which has been postponed twice.
Beijing said the 2020 security law was necessary for the city’s stability following the 2019 protests, which sent hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets.
The same law has convicted dozens of other leading pro-democracy activists, including pro-democracy former media mogul Jimmy Lai last month. Dozens of civil society groups have closed since the law took effect.
