On Monday 18th March, Baroness Arlene Foster, Andrew Hale (Senior Policy Analyst in Trade Policy for the Heritage Foundation) and myself began our morning with the pleasure of meeting with Ambassador John Bolton in his Washington DC office to discuss matters concerning both Northern Ireland and Ukraine.

We also were fortunate to be joined by Kelley E. Currie who served as the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues and previously served as the U.S. Representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

Ambassador Bolton has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the political situation in Northern Ireland and is all too aware of the NI / GB internal trade issues brought about by the workings of the Windsor Framework and the outside pressures being inflicted by the European Union and the Republic of Ireland in their so called ‘protecting the integrity of the EU single market’.

It was encouraging to hear Ambassador Bolton’s support for a positive future of the UK post-Brexit and his continuing support for Northern Ireland remaining part of the union. There was also much discussion on the need for the US and UK governments to continue offering military support to Ukraine.

I was delighted to gift Ambassador Bolton two books published by Together UK Foundation Advisory Board Members:

J.W. Foster’s book title gave for much laughter from Ambassador Bolton, after which I explained it was a play on the ‘England get out of Ireland’ banner carried by the Sinn Fein leader, Mary Lou McDonald, in New York in 2019.

We very much look forward to hosting Ambassador Bolton on a future UK visit.

Over lunchtime, Andrew Hale kindly arranged a high-level meeting at the Russell Senate Office Building between us and Homeland Security, former military officer, Wayne Jones. Today, he’s a senior policy analyst on a US National Security portfolio which includes defence, intelligence, veterans and foreign affairs issues.

Mr. Jones brought his staffer team of National Security analysts and there were frank discussions regarding mutual security and defence cooperation between the US and UK, based around the very important geopolitical position of Northern Ireland.

The discussion broadened out to the security issues relating to that of the Republic of Ireland and the country’s reliance on the UK Navy and Air Force for the its national defence. This was a great inaugural conversation and there will be future opportunities to build relationships through ongoing meetings.

Following on from the Homeland Security meeting, Baroness Foster was interviewed by The Daily Signal, an American political media news and commentary website founded in June 2014. The website focuses on politics, policy, and culture and offers political commentary from a conservative perspective. You can read their short article titled: ‘She Survived Terrorist Attacks to Become Voice for Democracy in UK‘.

You can listen to Arlene’s interview with The Daily Signal below.

That same day, we subsequently made our way to the Heritage Foundation. In its main auditorium, Baroness Foster gave a headline speech on British-American Trade Relations and participated in a Q&A session hosted by Andrew Hale. This was accompanied by a drinks reception for the in-house audience, followed on by a wonderful dinner of select guests who were able to talk directly with Baroness Foster.

You can watch Arlene’s speech in the video below.

Andrew Grocock, CEO of Together UK Foundation