Ireland's Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney is set to travel to Washington, DC to hold talks with members of the Trump administration next week.
Coveney will also talk with senior members of Congress and plans to talk to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on his visit to the US capital.
He is also expected to meet Representative Richard Neal, who chairs the Ways and Means Committee, which has authority over US trade deals with foreign nations.
Coveney, who is due to fly to Washington on Monday, is expected to hold discussions about Ireland's upcoming UN Security Council membership and the Brexit negotiations, which have hit a snag in recent weeks.
The British Government's Internal Market Bill, which was backed by MPs in a vote earlier this week, will override certain aspects of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement struck last year, including parts of the Northern Ireland protocol.
The bill seeks to secure unimpeded trade between Northern Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales and could potentially create custom checks along the Northern Irish border, threatening the Good Friday Agreement.
A number of prominent US politicians have already slated the Internal Market Bill, with several Democrats claiming that there would be no post-Brexit trade deal between the US and the UK if the Good Friday Agreement was violated.
Nancy Pelosi, for instance, categorically stated that there would be no trade deal if the Good Friday Agreement was violated, while Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden also said that any trade deal was contingent on preventing a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has already traveled to Washington to negotiate with prominent American politicians, including Pelosi, in the fallout from the Internal Market Bill.
The American politicians warned Raab that there would be no trade deal between the nations if the peace process in Northern Ireland was threatened.
Coveney, meanwhile, told the Dáil on Thursday that the EU would not ratify any new deal with the UK if the British Government continued to threaten to break international law.
"Why would the EU ratify a new agreement with a country that is threatening to break an agreement that’s not even 12 months old?" Coveney said on Thursday.
Before he heads to the US, Coveney is expected to meet with Mick Mulvaney, the US Special Envoy to Northern Ireland, in Dublin on Monday. Mulvaney is set to travel to Ireland for the first time since he was appointed Special Envoy earlier this year.
Coveney is the first Irish politician to visit America since then-Taoiseach Leo Varadkar visited Washington, DC ahead of St. Patrick's Day earlier this year. During that visit, Varadkar announced the first set of restrictions for the country as coronavirus began to take hold.
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