Biden’s Truss Opportunity

The new U.K. prime minister could be a superb ally, but the president has to do his part.

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The United Kingdom’s Liz Truss took office this week as the 15th prime minister in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. The former foreign secretary has the desire and potential to be an exceptional American ally—if President Joe Biden does his part. 

Truss is the country’s third female leader and fourth Conservative since her party returned to power in 2010. While she diverges from predecessor Boris Johnson’s big government conservatism, she very much represents a continuation of policy on foreign affairs. She is well and truly committed to the “special relationship” between the U.K. and U.S. The second phone call she took upon taking office, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s, was Biden’s.

During her leadership bid, Truss talked up the need for strong responses to the threat from Russia, China, and Iran and made no secret of her admiration for former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. “United with our allies, we will stand up for freedom and democracy around the world,” she said in her inaugural speech. “We can’t have security at home without having security abroad.”

As foreign minister she led the early international response to the crisis in Ukraine, and she succeeded in cobbling together early support. The U.K., Poland, and the Baltic states began sending weapons to the endangered democracy while others dithered ahead of the Russian attack. Likewise, she helped to secure a deal between the U.K., Poland, and Ukraine on economic and defense cooperation. The United States has since followed these policies. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Here’s hoping for a Maggie Thatcher of the 21st Century! I’m bullish on Liz Truss. Britain does well under strong female leaders.

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  2. Natty Bumpo

    I think Ms. Truss is a good choice as PM as her past experience with trade and foreign affairs will be especially important post Brexit. It is certain that the US should tend our relations with the UK and with its political leader, and I hope Mr. Biden makes a serious effort here. Defense issues will be Formosa, but I agree that we should support and cooperate on energy and general trade. Trade is thorny between any two parties, but i would support an arrangement that is unbuttoned with many barriers and has a sensible adjudication process.

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    Dr. Livesey

    This looks like a helpful survey of the policy areas where the U.S. and U.K. might work well together. I'd be even more interested in delving deeper into the particular topics, but maybe it's too early — we'll know what Truss and her cabinet are really pushing for when they actually push for it. At that point, let's hear more about those topics, and in depth. That would be much more interesting.

    The writing here is not horrible, but it's slightly irritating, even a little distracting, and it seems like a problem in British commentary culture (the U.S. commentariat has somewhat different, and often worse, problems). There's a tolerance for excessive throat clearing and cliches dropped in without much thought, and it amounts to a waste of time for the reader (and wasting the reader's time doesn't seem to be a concern for the writer, I'm guessing). The cultural difference helps in recognizing the problem.

    Examples: "as the 15th prime minister in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II." Throat clearing at the top of the article. First, we've all been reading this or hearing it in all sorts of news reports. It probably seemed fresher when the writer wrote it or even when Dispatch editors looked it over, but it's a boring statistic now, and, what's worse, completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Tyler should save this kind of thing for when he's being paid by the word. This looks like a signal that the writer doesn't have much to say (which isn't true). Its the kind of padding that a college student inserts at 2:45 a.m., just to get the required number of pages in a report (after recognizing that widening the margins won't do the trick).

    "Truss is the country’s third female leader and fourth Conservative since her party returned to power in 2010." Ditto and ditto. Save the irrelevant statistics, Tyler. Editors, you should've deleted this.

    "she very much represents" — I find a lot of British commentators are weak when it comes to adverbs; "very much" is dull and used very, very much in British prose. Even "nevertheless" would've been better here. The writer seems to signal that he isn't very much interested in the topic at hand (I think he's pretty interested). If "represents" must be described, find a phrase that would inform the reader a bit more.

    "her white whale was always across the pond" — "white whale" I don't mind — it's not *too* cliched (for me, anyway). "across the pond" should be banned for a while whenever the U.S./U.K. relationship comes up. It's as cliched as cliched ever gets on the topic. (By the way, Canada is "across the pond," so the phrase is annoying and an annoying reminder that the writer really wasn't thinking about the use of the phrase.) Once you read the headline, you know the phrase is going to pop up. You wait for it. You could bet on it if anyone were willing to take the bet. It's the No. 2 cliche on this topic, after ...

    ... "special relationship" — This is so bad that when referring to it the commentator should just use more words to write around that idea. It's not meaningless, but the only way for the reader to actually think about the meaning of that phrase is to use fresher wording. So ban this phrase wherever possible and replace it with something more specific to the topic at hand, even if it takes more words to do so.

    "she's well and truly committed" — see "she very much represents" above. This "well and truly" is a hoary British cliche that needs to be replaced with a bit more work by the writer. Or editor. Ask yourself, how could someone be actually committed in any way other than "well and truly"?

    On the other hand, "our American cousins" never appeared once in the article. "Naivity" is Britain's better version of the American-trying-to-sound-French "naivete."

    Brits, by and large — and especially when college educated — write and speak so much better than Americans. But there seems to be a ceiling to it among so many Brits. It would be a high ceiling for Americans, but it's got a lot of cobwebs hanging from it, and so much dust.

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  4. Halvor

    “ succeeded in cobbling together early support” sounds like résumé hype at the expense of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, brave heroes who didn’t need to be talked into confronting an existential threat.

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  5. Eric Swenson

    Are France, Germany, and Italy not also The European Union? Are they treated differently when it comes to negotiating trade agreements?

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    rlritt

    The British Conservative Party seems at odds with the Republican Party as it is today. There seems no reason a seasoned politician like Biden wouldn't be eager to find common ground with the new British Prime Minister. Especially in the face Chinese and Russian aggression. It is the Republucan Party's leader, Trump who favors an alliance with Putin and the Chinese dictator.

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  7. Jaybrown

    She will be a knowledgeable and serious player on the world stage, strongly committed to the U.K.'s security. Is there anyone in the US government that can match that?

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  8. R. James

    Truss' cynical move against the NI protocol risks poisoning any relationship from the start. The UK needs to honor its commitments.

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    Tmcke

    This is all vague. What besides offering technology for oil drilling does the writer imagine? And trade treaties take time. Our trade with the UK had been managed under our agreements (if any) with the EU. So now we have to start over. And they all need to go before Congress.

    In fact Brexit was a bad idea put forth by liars.

    Of course we should do all we can, but what? Is the UK interested in our soybeans?

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  10. Avatar photo
    Marty Allday

    I think I'm gonna like Truss.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Pastorfbt

      So far she seems to have the right enemies fwiw.

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