Border Security

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President.

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Mr. MURPHY. They are often the first to come to our aid when we are in need, when we need partners around the globe. So it brings me no pleasure to come to the floor to object to this resolution being passed at this time, partly because I think there will be a right time for the Senate to come together unanimously and express our support for a U.S.-Britain free-trade agreement. But I want to spend 1\1/2\ minutes telling you why this is not the time.

We are having this debate because Britain has chosen to leave the European Union. Previous to Britain's departure, we were pushing for a U.S.-EU trade agreement that would have brought benefits to Britain but also to the rest of the continent.

Today, we are talking about a bilateral agreement because Britain is leaving the European Union, but they have not yet fully left in the sense that there is an agreement connected to their exit that Britain has not yet fulfilled. One of the most important aspects of that agreement relates to the Good Friday Agreement, the Good Friday Agreement being a seminal achievement of American diplomacy that brought to an end decades of troubles and violence in and around Northern Ireland.

The UK and EU negotiated what is called the Northern Ireland Protocol as part of the EU withdrawal agreement. That arrangement was intended to preserve the Good Friday Agreement and to ensure that you would never have a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Under the protocol, it was agreed that Northern Ireland would continue to follow EU rules on food safety and other products standards to prevent those customs checks across the border. The checks, instead, would take place on goods entering Northern Ireland from England, Scotland, or Wales.

The problem is that the British Government right now wants to change the deal and to get rid of most of the checks, to reduce customs procedures in order to allow goods to move more freely. But this has created a political crisis because it threatens to reerect that hard border that could unfortunately stimulate a reemergence of conflict. It has already been incredibly destabilizing in Northern Ireland. The leader of the largest unionist party has threatened to quit the government if the current protocol is not replaced.

This is not an insignificant risk, and our priority should be, before cheerleading and championing a free-trade agreement, to make sure that Britain's commitment to protect the Good Friday Agreement as part of their departure from the European Union is fulfilled.

So I look forward to the time when we can come together, Republicans and Democrats, and support the entering into of discussions for a free- trade agreement between the United States and Britain, but I would submit that this is not the right time. Right now, we need to be firm in our commitment to make sure that the conditions of withdrawal from the European Union specifically with respect the Good Friday Agreement are fulfilled, and only once those conditions are fulfilled should we as a body make that full commitment to this free-trade agreement.

Let's make sure that we not do anything to jeopardize what has been decades of productive peace and peace discussions in and around Northern Ireland.

For that reason, I would object.

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