US President Joe Biden said Monday’s landmark Windsor Framework “is an essential step” to preserving and strengthening the Good Friday Agreement and pledged US assistance to help support new economic opportunities created by it.
“I am confident the people and businesses of Northern Ireland will be able to take full advantage of the economic opportunities created by this stability and certainty, and the United States stands ready to support the region’s vast economic potential,” he said in a statement.
Biden, who has Irish family ties, has closely followed the tense stand-off between London and Brussels over the so-called Northern Ireland protocol and has urged the UK and the EU to resolve the toxic row.
He said Joe Kennedy, the recently appointed Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs, will lead US efforts to support fresh business initiatives, along with the US ambassadors in London and Dublin and Northern Ireland business leaders.
Biden said he hoped the Windsor Framework would help Northern Ireland’s political institutions to function again.
“I hope — as we all do — that Northern Ireland’s political institutions are soon back up and running. Those institutions embody the principle of devolved, power-sharing, representative government at the core of the Good Friday Agreement,” he said.
