The Sunak liner did not appear to secure London from the shipwreck

Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden in Washington – Reuters

UK and USA They are still “friends” of the skin? This is the question many are asking in the wake of the official visit of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to the United States. Thursday’s two-day outing ended with a press conference at the White House with US President Joe Biden. The two leaders did not spare smiles and fuss. During a short curtain-raiser for Winston Churchill who, as a guest of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1941, is said to have awakened the entire presidential family with his noise at dawn, Sunak confirmed: “Don’t worry Chief, you’ll never see me make such scenes.”

It’s easy to say that the current tenant of Downing Street is, for better or worse, not the man the Russians called the “British Bulldog”. Not even the UK, of course, is the same country today as it was eighty years ago. What is difficult to admit is that the “special relationship” between London and Washington, dating back to the time of Churchill and World War IINow a little more than a memory. The agreement that Sunak brought from the expedition to the United States, the Atlantic Declaration, is of “modest” scope. Almost a consolation prize. Of course, it promotes cooperation in defense, nuclear and quantum computing. An even more important detail is that he also expects a joint business in the supply of minerals needed for the production of electric cars, mobile phones, turbines and combat aircraft. A measure designed to contain China’s rush of lithium, cobalt and graphite.

Biden repeated, “No country It is closer to the US than the UK.” But the Tory leader failed to bring much home. The coveted free-trade agreement he hoped to offset the effects of Brexit remains a long way off. The president has reacted tepidly to the idea that NATO, In September, he could have a British proverb Ben WallaceThe current Secretary of Defense is in command. “It’s worth watching,” he commented tightly. Support was also murk for the proposal to set up an international agency in London to oversee AI applications. Sunak, who will host an international conference on standards that should regulate the sector in the fall, has barely won approval to “work together” on the matter. Biden is, of course, a Democrat, and no small detail has ever been a positive in London’s farewell to the European Union. his latest collection of Green subsidies terrified ministers across the Channel. The image of a conservative prime minister emerging in Washington almost pleading “judge us by the facts,” exudes an urgency to win back an ally who can help the country navigate, without sinking, the waters raised by the perfect storm caused first by Brexit, then by the pandemic and finally by war. in Ukraine. In the Tory house, Sunak’s titanic effort has been reduced. The prime minister, as the most romantic would say, is to reinvent an old alliance, essentially military, to make it “future-proof”.