Thread by @PoliticoRyan

THREAD: Boris Johnson has a problem named Joe Biden: Democrats are ☑️ on UK climate leadership and ☑️ on UK defense spending increase, but in no mood to prioritize the relatively small trade deal Johnson wants to agree in Biden’s first 100 days. 1/
politico.com/news/2020/12/3…

My new article puts the much more likely timeframe for the U.S.-U.K. #trade deal as 2022. It’s not punishment for #Brexit per se, but Brexit means the U.K. has complicated Washington’s relations with Europe, and dropped it down the global pecking order /2

I interviewed 16 senior officials and former officials on both sides of the Atlantic, and it’s clear that despite the new EU-UK settlement, Brexit will continue to change the transatlantic dynamic under Biden /3

“You’re still going to call London, but that call will be lower down in the queue,” thanks to Brexit, said @CFR_org's Charles Kupchan, former Obama/Clinton National Security Council official, and author of a new book "Isolationism" /4

Here's more: “Biden is seeking to strengthen and renew ties with the EU - Britain is not going to be a part of that,” said one person familiar with President-elect Biden’s thinking. “Boris Johnson needs a trade deal to show the domestic utility of Brexit.”not Biden’s problem /5

“I’d say the best case scenario for a deal is 2022,” said Lewis Lukens, who served as U.S. deputy ambassador to the U.K. under Presidents Trump and Obama /6

“The first task is trying to get our house in order at home,” said James Clapper, Obama's nat intelligence director /7

@TomTugendhat, the Conservative chair of the U.K. Parliament’s foreign affairs committee told @politico that U.K. should focus on getting the U.K. + U.S. to join the #CPTPP, an 11-country trade bloc designed in part to counter China /8

The U.K. govt isn't ready to admit defeat but told me that landing a comprehensive deal matters more than the speed of the deal. (USTR must notify Congress of a pending agreement before April 1 in order to preserve fast track authority which expires on July 1 /9

In the view of many Democrats, Boris Johnson bet too heavily on @realDonaldTrump, and stacked his Cabinet with relatively inexperienced Brexit supporters ... meaning British diplomats in DC are left patching relationship gaps with Democrats /10

The U.K. government insists that’s an unfair reading of the situation: they claim deep bipartisan links to U.K. + Katherine Tai, Biden’s pick for #USTR /10

Those close to Biden say they don’t want to over-personalize the Boris-Biden differences (which is good news for Boris, since Biden described him at a 2019 fundraiser as “a physical and emotional clone” of Trump) /11

“You have perfect couples in the mold of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, or Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and then there’s pairings where the personalities don’t mesh but they make it work,” said a person familiar with Biden’s thinking /12

But privately, Democrats continue to take offense at Johnson’s often inflammatory rhetoric, including a racially charged 2016 description of President Obama as America’s “part-Kenyan president.” Replace Obama with @KamalaHarris, you see why the comments hit too close to home /13

But what will really annoy Downing St. is the priority given to Brussels and Paris in the new administration’s thinking. “We will now return to engaging the EU as an essential partner, and it’s fair to see France as on the up,” said a former senior American diplomat /14

@ChrisMurphyCT and @RepRichNeal, chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, both think an EU trade deal is more important than the British deal /15

Meanwhile, Biden's team confirmed he is watching to make sure peace in #NorthernIreland is preserved in the post #Brexit settlement with the EU. He doesn't treat that as a given: it's a pre-condition yet not a guarantee of an eventual US-UK deal /17

The upshot: Britain will have to earn its trade deal and be patient. My full story here
politico.com/news/2020/12/3…