Pelosi reaffirms U.S. support for Ireland amid Brexit impasse

The United States would not agree to any trade deal with Britain if future Brexit arrangements undermine peace in Ireland, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday during a visit to Dublin. Reaffirming a message of U.S. solidarity with Ireland first delivered in a speech on Monday in London, Pelosi said it was vital to keep a “seamless border” between the Irish Republic and British-ruled Northern Ireland after the UK exits the European Union. Her comments are likely to irk some members of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party whose insistence on a ‘clean’ break with the EU’s customs union and single market have raised the prospect of new border controls on the island of Ireland. They also want a new trade deal with the United States.