By Andrew MacAskill

LONDON, (Reuters) – The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has warned Britain there won’t be a post Brexit trade deal with the United States if Britain continues with its plans to unilaterally eliminate some of the trade rules with Northern Ireland.

These comments follow Britain’s warning to the European Union that it may abandon regulations which were carefully negotiated with Brussels. This includes border controls on goods that are shipped from Northern Ireland to mainland Britain.

Post Brexit, the trade protocol seeks to maintain the British-run provincial, bordering EU member Ireland in the United Kingdom’s customs territories and EU’s single markets.

Pelosi indicated that the current agreement was essential in maintaining 1998’s peace deal, which ended three decades in Northern Ireland conflict between Catholic nationalist militants (pro-British Protestant Loyalist) paramilitaries. In this war 3,600 died.

Pelosi stated in a statement that “If the United Kingdom decides to undermine Good Friday agreements, the Congress cannot support bilateral free trade agreements with the United Kingdom.”

Britain declares that it acts in the best interests of the Good Friday accord.

After the 1998 United States-mediated peace accord, Northern Ireland continues to be divided on sectarian lines. Catholic nationalists long for unification with Ireland. Protestant unionists, however, want to keep the United Kingdom.

Although Britain considered a trade agreement with the United States one of the greatest benefits of EU membership, hopes for a swift deal were crushed when the new Biden administration declared it not to be a priority.

A U.S.-British agreement on trade would need to be approved by the U.S. Congress.

Pelosi made the warning after Conor Burns (Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s new special envoy in Washington for the Northern Ireland protocol), visited Washington to discuss the British position.

Pelosi stated, “Respectful to the will of British people, and of Brexit,”