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British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak holds a huddle with political journalists on board a government plane as he heads to Washington.
What does the UK’s Sunak want from Biden?
The so-called special US-UK relationship has taken a series of hits in recent years – think Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Brexit – but things appear to have gotten back on track under President Joe Biden and PM Rishi Sunak.
That camaraderie is currently on full display as Sunak landed in Washington, DC, on Wednesday for a two-day visit. He will meet with Biden at the White House on Thursday, after meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Senate leadership at the US Capitol on Wednesday.
Despite their 40-year age gap, the two men, who sit on different sides of the political middle, are closely aligned on Ukraine, Russia, and China policy.
The ongoing war in Ukraine – particularly the recent breach of a crucial dam in the south – will be top of the agenda when they meet, as well as how to regulate artificial intelligence, with Sunak having emerged as a tough critic of the emerging tech.
The state of bilateral economic ties, perhaps the thorniest topic, will also be a key feature of the summit. Consider that when Biden came to office in 2021, he nixed a larger US-UK trade deal proposed by Trump that the Brits hoped would bolster their shaky post-Brexit economy. (Though a free-trader, Biden has focused on providing subsidies at home to boost US manufacturing with his signature Inflation Reduction Act, which Sunak aides have dismissed as “protectionist.”)
Still, perhaps to tamper expectations, Downing Street says that Sunak won't push for an expansive UK-US free trade agreement this week, knowing that the White House isn’t quite there.
After Merkel, who leads Europe?
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden, shares his perspective from Europe:
Who's going to be the leading voice politician in Europe after Angela Merkel leaves?
Well, that remains to be seen. First, we need to wait for the outcome of the German election, and then it's going to take quite some time to form a government in Germany to see who's going to be chancellor. And then of course we have elections coming up in France in the spring. Macron is likely to win, but you never know. So by next summer, we'll know more about that. And then there are other personalities there. There's Mario Draghi, prime minister of Italy, who has a strong personality. Mark Rutte of the Netherlands, as long as he's there. So it's going to take quite some time for this to be sorted out.
What did Boris Johnson achieve during his visit to the United States?
Well, I think his number one priority at the moment must be to mobilize broader international support for climate efforts. He is the host of the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow in November. That must be a success and I hope that he makes further progress in that direction during his days in the United States.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson (left) meets US President Joe Biden in the Oval Office of the White House, Washington DC, during his visit to the United States for the United Nations General Assembly. Picture date: Tuesday September 21, 2021.
What We’re Watching: UK wants to be North American, Sudanese foil coup, Haitian refugee crisis grows
Can the UK join a North American trade deal? The acronym for the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement was never all that elegant, but now London wants to throw two more letters into that soup. That's right, the UK wants to join USMCA, the trade pact brokered by the Trump administration in 2020 as an update to the 1990s-era NAFTA agreement. London had hoped that Brexit would free it up to ink a bilateral free trade deal with the US, but as those talks have stalled in recent months, PM Boris Johnson now wants to plug his country into the broader three-party deal. The fact that the UK already has deals with Canada and Mexico should help, in principle. But it would doubtless be a complex negotiation. And there's at least one huge hurdle: US officials are reportedly unaware of any mechanism at all for bringing aboard additional countries.
Haitian migrant crisis at US border: In recent days more than 15,000 Haitians — most of whom come from South America, where they've lived since fleeing post-quake Haiti in 2010 — have journeyed to the US southern border in hopes of gaining asylum. No such luck. The Biden administration is deporting them as fast as it can, and US border patrol officers have even sent agents on horseback to capture them. Earlier this week, a horrific image of a border patrol horseman using what looks like a whip against a Haitian refugee went viral. While the White House has given protected status to Haitians already in the US, that does not apply to new arrivals. And although Biden is seeking to raise the cap of refugees accepted by the US overall, he has left in place the Trump administration's Title 42 provision, which permits the US to deport asylum seekers, without a hearing, on public health grounds. Human rights groups say Title 42 is discriminatory, but Biden may be keeping an eye on the polls here: 80 percent of Americans think of immigration as a "serious problem," and 55 percent are against Biden undoing some of the most stringent Trump-era immigration policies.
Sudan thwarts coup: Sudan's civilian PM Abdalla Hamdok says the military has foiled a coup attempt by "forces of darkness" linked to Omar al-Bashir, the deposed former dictator. Details are sketchy, but at least 21 military officers and civilians have been arrested for their role in the failed coup, considered the most serious of multiple previous attempts. The possibility of a military takeover by al-Bashir loyalists has haunted the country since the longtime autocrat — now pending trial in The Hague — was ousted in 2019, giving way to a shaky democratic transition. Although the military has mostly stayed loyal to the the transitional civilian-military government that has run the country for more than two years, many disgruntled officers remain in their jobs, and could become a bigger problem in November, when power is supposed to rotate from the military side of the transitional government to the civilian side headed by Hamdok.
Rory Stewart explains why Afghanistan could become a new hotbed for global terrorism
Former UK diplomat Rory Stewart says the world is safer today than it was 20 years ago, but that terrorists still pose a threat to international security. Victories for jihadists in Iraq, Syria and now Afghanistan could ultimately lead the world towards more global terrorism. As if the Taliban retaking Afghanistan wasn't enough of a blow, the ISIS-K attack on the Kabul airport may be a sign that the country is on its way to become a safe haven for terrorist groups yet again.
"The problem in the US debate is that it's just all black and white. Either this is the most important threat in the world, or it's not a threat at all. The answer of course is, it's somewhere in between, and it's always been," Stewart says in an interview with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World. He also believes that the US-UK relationship is likely to suffer after President Joe Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan. The UK, he says, has crafted its foreign policy in lock step with the United States since the 1950s. The fact that America's biggest partner wasn't consulted on the Afghanistan withdrawal is likely going to change how Downing Street treats its ties with Washington.
Watch the full episode: Is America safer since 9/11?
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US now at most isolationist stage since WW2, says former UK diplomat
How has America's withdrawal from Afghanistan affected the US-UK "special relationship"? For former UK diplomat Rory Stewart, the hasty pullout without consulting close allies is only the latest example of the US — under first Trump and now Biden — being at the most isolationist stage on foreign military interventions since World War II. "It's a very, very awkward, odd moment. I mean, we, can we rebuild from it, but it's been a very shattering, disappointing moment." Watch his interview with Ian Bremmer on the latest episode of GZERO World.
Watch the episode: Is America Safer Since 9/11?
Hong Kong a year after the National Security Law; US-UK travel corridor
Ian Bremmer shares his perspective on global politics this week:
A year after the National Security Law, how has Hong Kong changed?
More integrated into mainland China. Virtually no Western companies have pulled out. A fair number of Hong Kong citizens are leaving, and of course no more democratic opposition, no more free media. The full incorporation of Hong Kong into mainland China. One country, one system is happening very fast.
As rebels retake the Tigray capital, Ethiopia declares a ceasefire. Is peace near in Ethiopia's civil war?
Early to say that. It's certainly a promising step. There's been a lot of pressure from the international community, the US and others, sanctions on the Ethiopian government, potential that the IMF program doesn't run forward. That would be a big problem for the Ethiopian economy. So they want to move to a ceasefire, but the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy, is concerned that he doesn't have the military support for maintaining a ceasefire given the tense balance in Tigray. Certainly, with the Eritrean military across the border supporting them, it's going to be hard to keep that in place. But we will see where it goes.
Finally, is the hope of the US-UK travel corridor fading as the Delta variant forces more lockdowns around the world?
I know a lot of Brits want to come here and vice versa. I don't think so. Definitely the lockdowns are continuing through mid-July at the least in the UK, but again, the United States and UK have been some of the fastest in the world in terms of getting the entire population vaccinated. Yes, there are holdouts. Yes, there's anti-vax sentiment, but ultimately just as we're feeling like life is getting back to normal, that international transit between the advanced industrial economies is picking up soon. I'd be stunned if by the end of the summer we aren't traveling back and forth between the US and UK. Once again, special relationship, even post-Brexit.
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