For all the recent talk from ministers that the UK government has plenty in common with the new Biden administration, there hasn’t been much of an opportunity yet for Boris Johnson to build ties. After Joe Biden’s inauguration today that will change. Until Biden and his team are sworn in, there can be no direct contact between them and a foreign government. This is why in recent months ministerial teams have instead focused their attention on meeting influential Democrats in the wider party and working out their plan of action for when channels open.
So, who are the key players on the UK side when it comes to building on the special relationship? Boris Johnson’s personal relationship with Biden is viewed as the most important, but also the most difficult to improve. The pair have never met and Biden once suggested the PM was a ‘physical and emotional clone’ of Trump. Johnson is due to remedy this in June at the G7 in Cornwall when the pair are expected to meet. Already work is underway on areas of common interest between the two sides: the environment, a united approach to China and the international response to Covid.
As Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab will in many ways lead the daily response, but three of his colleagues are also viewed as key: Brandon Lewis, Alok Sharma and Liz Truss. Biden has Irish roots and has been vocal in his criticism of the UK approach to Brexit – including the internal market bill. The UK hope is to take what is viewed as a weakness and turn it into a strength. Lewis is expected to be one of the first ministers to visit America and there are early discussions underway on seconding a staff member focused on Northern Ireland issues to the embassy in Washington.
Sharma had to give up his role as Business Secretary to focus solely on Cop26 after it became clear to Downing Street that there was concern on the US side over the grip on the event. With John Kerry leading on climate change for Biden, the idea is that Sharma will bring organisation and discipline to the summit even if he isn’t as big a name as his counterpart.The other area where there is an appetite to build ties quickly is the Department for International Trade. The idea of a quick UK/US trade deal has gone out of the window with the departure of Trump. But there are still hopes that in a few years an arrangement could be found if both the UK and US join the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership.
In the meantime, officials hope to use ties with Biden’s trade representative Katherine Tai from her time under Barack Obama (when trade disputes included Boeing aviation tariffs) to push punitive Scotch Whisky tariffs up the agenda. While ministers know an effort will have to be made to find common ground, they are confident that Biden and his team will be much easier to predict than his predecessor ever was.
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