Priorities first
“Dealing with the coronavirus pandemic is one of the most important battles our administration will face, and I will be informed by science and by experts,” said President-elect Biden. “The advisory board will help shape my approach to managing the surge in reported infections; ensuring vaccines are safe, effective, and distributed efficiently, equitably, and free; and protecting at-risk populations.”
Among the other priorities the Biden administration is set to do is raise corporate income taxes to 28% — compared with the current 21% rate set by the GOP-led tax cuts of 2017, according to an NPR report.
“He won’t ask a single person making under $400,000 per year to pay a penny more in taxes, and will in fact enact more than one-dozen middle-class tax cuts that will finally give working families the financial support they deserve,” said the Joe Biden campaign website.
On the other side of the pond, however, things are going to be more taxing.
Brexit, Biden and Boris
Joe Biden is proud of his Irish roots, and Ireland has a soft spot for him, too. But will that influence his decision to commit to a Brexit Britain trade deal if no deal is first concluded between the UK and EU come January?
“Any trade deal between the U.S. and U.K. must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.,” said Biden in a Tweet back in September.
But then again, the Obama-Biden administration was never happy about the UK-EU split.
According to The Spectator’s Associate Editor, Douglas Murray, the Democrat Party could potentially have an ‘erroneous’ misinterpretation over the UK leaving the EU without a trade deal and the impact on the Good Friday Agreement.
Douglas explains his views in this LBC radio interview, which you can listen to here.
Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said assurances that the UK would not threaten the Good Friday Agreement had been made to members of the next US administration.
“We are very clear. We will never do anything to put at risk the Good Friday Agreement and of course if the EU does the same, this issue is resolved,” he said.
“Our argument is that it is EU that has put pressure on [the Agreement] with the approach it has taken.”
While the British are battling a pandemic, a national lockdown and uncertainty over Brexit trade deals, Joe Biden will not see these as his priorities, he has his own kettle of fish, and come January if and when he is signed in as the 46th US President, he will have bigger fish to fry.
And as PM Boris Johnson continues to haggle Michel Barnier’s fisheries plan and agreed on payment from Brussels for access to British waters, let’s just hope Britain has enough fish to catch and a deal to trade them with once Biden comes around to having that all-important first trade talk.
