data: One overlooked

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Warning from across the pond: A group of 40 Irish-American leaders — including several former congressmen — have written to the new Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith this week to warn the U.S. Congress will reject any Anglo-American trade deal if the Good Friday Agreement is deemed to have been breached. The letter from the “Ad Hoc Committee to Protect the Good Friday Agreement” quotes extensively from comments Speaker Nancy Pelosi made while in Dublin in April, making clear she would not accept any trade deal that she believes has threatened peace across Ireland. It is important to remember that U.S. trade deals are ultimately shaped and approved by Congress, not the president — meaning all the goodwill in the world from Donald Trump is not going to get a deal over the line. RTE has the story.

Which might explain … why Boris Johnson has apparently been meeting various U.S. congressmen for private talks over recent months. Dow Jones’ Tom Teodorczuk reports Johnson met with phone number library prominent Republicans Devin Nunes and George Holding in London earlier this year. “There is an incredible amount of U.S. political support for Boris and a trade deal with the U.K.,” a source tells him. The problem for Johnson, of course, is that the Democrats now control the House.

No deal, no aspect of no deal is the impact it could have on data sharing between the U.K. and Europe, and the huge knock-on effect that could have for business and the wider economy. Playbook would point you at this Twitter thread yesterday from POLITICO’s chief technology correspondent, Mark Scott, for details.