It was perhaps fleeting and low-key by previous standards but presidential visits don't come along every day. Critics may regard such events as an unnecessary fuss and an inconvenience – thousands of police deployed, a city effectively locked down and wall-to-wall, soft soap media coverage. Even some journalists complain that staged appearances by world leaders reading from anodyne scripted speeches aren't in fact real news but mere electioneering and a distraction from the issues that matter. There may be some truth in such scepticism but it's hard not to get caught up in the hype and emotion when you catch a first glimpse of the presidential cavalcade.
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Undoubtedly, President Biden's visit could have been longer and involved more engagements. A quarter of a century on from the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, it made perfect sense for him to address the Stormont assembly, an institutional manifestation of an accord conceived around partnership. Regrettably at present the spirit of reconciliation and compromise that enabled peace to prosper in years after 1998 is seemingly in short supply.
Nevertheless, the mood at Ulster University, his sole engagement on what some have characterised as a whistle-stop visit, was buoyant. An invited audience of students, politicians, businesspeople and representatives of civic society hung on every word uttered by the 80-year-old president. Sometimes his words were delivered in the gentle, hushed tones befitting of an octogenarian before suddenly, as if prompted by a small electrical charge administered by an off-stage aide, his voice would boom.
The message was typically diplomatic and uncontroversial. February's Windsor Framework deal means all eyes are presently on the DUP, whose leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson was among the guests, yet President Biden has been keen to ensure he's not seen to be hectoring the party over its Stormont boycott. Nevertheless, while there was a distinct absence of stick in the president's words, there was no shortage of figurative carrots. Joe Biden brings the might of the world's largest economy with him and a pledge to help bring jobs, assistance that Washington rarely offers outside of its own jurisdiction. Long after Air Force One has flown back across the Atlantic, Special Economic Envoy Joe Kennedy will continue in his efforts to drum up jobs and foster prosperity in a region that has waited a lot longer than 25 years for its true potential to be unlocked.
A visitor to Belfast in the mid-1990s, President Biden acknowledged the transformation in the cityscape since. He accordingly credits the Good Friday Agreement with ushering in the changes Northern Ireland society has seen in recent decades and despite the current political deadlock, felt it was fitting to visit and mark the accord's 25th anniversary. Some churlish, short-sighted unionists may regard his intervention more as interfering but it's worth remembering that without him and his Irish-American ilk, the peace process would likely have foundered. Much of the support may be symbolic, and on occasions even misguided, but as the special envoy noted ahead of the president's speech, there are some 230 US companies operating in the north, employing up to 30,000 people.
It was a visit that ultimately lacked the charisma of the Clintons or the personableness of the Obamas, but it was worthwhile if all it did was remind those insular sections on both sides of the community divide that there is a world out there that is moving on. There was no walkabout and generally the atmosphere was deliberately subdued but the significance of the president's presence and the political clout that comes with it can never be overstated.
