President Joe Biden is reportedly planning to appoint former Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) as a special envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs amid upheaval in the region due to Brexit.
Kennedy, the grandson of former Sen. Robert Kennedy (D-MA), served in Congress from 2013 to 2021 as a rising progressive star until he lost his primary bid to oust Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA). The post, known as the U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland, had been left empty after the exit of Mick Mulvaney following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
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An announcement is expected in the coming days, per the Wall Street Journal. A number of politicos, such as Rep.-elect Mike Lawler (R-NY), had pushed the Biden administration to fill the vacated post because of the political tug-of-war over Northern Ireland caused by the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.
“He will be very much focused on advancing US economic engagement and people-to-people ties,” a Biden administration official told the news outlet.
Biden has opposed actions that would thwart the movement of labor and money between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which remains a member of the EU. The envoy role was first established by former President Bill Clinton and had been backed by the younger Kennedy’s father, former Rep. Joe Kennedy II (D-MA).
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In the late 1990s, the envoy helped broker the 1998 Good Friday peace deal that ended years of violence between factions keen on keeping Northern Ireland in the U.K. and others who wanted a separation.
The Kennedy patriarch, Joseph Kennedy Sr., the father of former President John F. Kennedy, briefly served as an ambassador to the U.K. under former President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
