Thomas Wright

Three weeks ago, a lot of the conservative British press was saying it was the total collapse of the relationship and the worst ever. I guess tomorrow they’ll say it’s a huge breakthrough. I don’t think either is true. [...] Aukus really shows what the UK has to contribute and it’s effective because it is in the high-end technology area that the UK has specialised in. There’s an alignment there and it has something big to contribute. That’s a very positive thing. [...] Talk of an Anglosphere or anything like that as an organising principle for the relationship or for US foreign policy is very ill-advised. I don’t think that’s helpful or accurate in terms of where things are headed. [...] There are very significant challenges [to a US-UK free trade deal] and I don’t think those are going to be wiped away.

Biden’s overarching message [in an address to the U.N. General Assembly] . . . was that strategic competition with China will not in any way diminish America’s commitment to working with other nations to tackle shared existential threats like climate change and pandemics. [The challenge for the U.S. president is to find a way of tackling shared threats in an era of great power rivalry and nationalism...] He will try to work with China but he also needs a back-up plan if that fails to materialise. Today’s speech was a first step in that direction.

The security initiative [AUKUS] is a major step forward for Biden’s Asia policy, but it also turbocharges a narrative in the EU that they are being taken for granted.