As the 2024 presidential race draws near, Joe Biden has put off negotiations for a trade agreement with the United Kingdom.
A “foundational” trade agreement with the UK is in the works, despite resistance from the Senate and differences over the accord’s parameters leading up to the national elections of the following year.
A draft of eleven proposed chapters that the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) published earlier this year indicated that negotiations would start.
However, according to two persons briefed by the US and British administrations, the transaction is no longer anticipated to proceed.
“I don’t think we’re going to see that re-emerge,” one person familiar with the matter told Politico.
The proposal’s timeline for talks — which would not consider market access or meet the World Trade Organization’s definition of a free trade agreement — set out that negotiations would wrap up ahead of elections in Britain and the U.S. next year.
The deal was closer in substance to the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) — which tackles regulation and non-tariff barriers — than a full trade agreement.
The British government has long coveted a trade agreement with the U.S. as a significant post-Brexit prize.
The draft was considered a road map to eventually securing a full-fledged, comprehensive deal. Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch pitched the IPEF-style deal in April during Biden’s visit to Belfast, Bloomberg reported, to reinvigorate talks first started under the Trump administration.