Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American power,

politics and society. On each episode, I will talk to an American expert or an expert on America

about something that's going on in America in

2023.

Welcome to The Americano. I'm Amber Athe, guest host today. Very excited to be here. I'm the

Washington editor for The Spectator World. And I'm joined by Lewis Lukins, the former deputy

chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in London.

And it's a very momentous occasion because President Joe Biden has traveled to Northern Ireland

to mark the 25th anniversary of the peace agreement with Great Britain.

So, Lewis, I would love if you could start by giving the dumb Americans who might be listening,

such as myself, a little bit of a primer on the significance of Biden's trip and maybe a recap

on what exactly this agreement was and also what the U.S.'s involvement was with that deal.

Sure. Well, thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

So, I mean, first of all, the Good Friday Agreement, which was signed 25 years ago,

was an agreement that the United States helped to broker between the United Kingdom and

Ireland and many of the different political parties and factions in Northern Ireland to bring

peace to Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland had

experienced roughly 30 plus years of conflict and assassinations and bombings and really sort of

terrorism, basically terrorism. And it was very much a partition area, part of Great Britain,

split between the Protestants and the catholics and the good

friday agreement president clinton was very invested in this effort and he appointed senator george

mitchell former senator at the time to to lead talks and it took him two years of negotiating and

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