Nancy Pelosi, America's third most powerful politician, warned today that a breakdown in the talks over the Northern Ireland Protocol would be 'problematic' for a post-Brexit UK-US trade deal. The UK wants to rewrite the protocol, which avoids a hard border with Ireland by effectively keeping Northern Ireland in the European Union's single market for goods. What is the Northern Ireland Protocol and why is the US so involved? The Northern Ireland Protocol aims to keep an open border between Northern Ireland and EU member state Ireland, a key plank of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to decades of violence. The Northern Ireland Protocol aims to keep the province in both the UK's customs territory and the EU's single market.

Source: The Nation September 17, 2021 16:07 UTC