AN American senator has said he believes the US congress would not pass a free trade deal agreement with Britain if there was a hard border in Ireland.
Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, also said it was "necessary to maintain the Belfast Good Friday Agreement", warning the UK of its importance to the US.
He made the comments at the end of his visit to the UK and Ireland, where he said there would be "no chance" of a free trade deal between America and Britain if there was a risk of a post-Brexit hard border in Ireland.
It comes just weeks after Brian O'Dwyer, in an opinion piece in the Irish News, also warned there could be no US deal for the UK unless all of Ireland is protected from the Brexit border fall out.
A leading figure in Irish-American business lobby, he wrote: "Let there be no doubt. Irish America stands with the Irish north and south who are adamant that a hard border must not be restored.
"If it is, Irish Americans are prepared to saddle up again to oppose any post-Brexit UK-US trade deal."
Mr Murphy told the BBC: "I think the EU is just as committed as Britain is to making sure there is a free flow of people and goods. I hope that the EU and Brussels is going to continue to be flexible and proactive in terms of trying to figure this out in the end.
"There still is this existential conflict between what the referendum called for and what is necessary to maintain the Belfast Good Friday Agreement."
Just last week US President Donald Trump said his administration looked forward to negotiating a "large-scale trade deal"with the UK.
But Mr Murphy said it was "really important for people here to understand that if the peace process isn't protected, if at the very least the backstop isn't included in this agreement, there is going to be no trade agreement with the United States, no matter what Donald Trump says".
"Donald Trump doesn't ultimately control whether of not the United States Congress passes a trade agreement that is negotiated with Britain and there are enough friends of Northern Ireland and friends of Ireland in the United States Congress, that we are going to demand that the peace process be protected," he said.
"Part of the reason I did come here was that I was watching this President cheerlead Britain out of the EU, seemingly without any conditionality and that is his opinion and his opinion alone - congress has had a long interest in preserving and protecting the peace process and that doesn't go away."
