Biden, UK Prime Minister Sunak announce Atlantic Declaration economic partnership ‘for a new age’

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President Biden and United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have announced Thursday a new economic partnership called the Atlantic Declaration, with Sunak is hailing as being of a "kind that has never been agreed before." 

Biden, speaking alongside Sunak in Washington, D.C., said the plan "outlines how we can enhance our cooperation to accelerate the clean energy transition that must take place and is taking place, lead the development of emerging technologies that are going to shape so much of our future and protect technologies critical to our national security." 

"When it comes to technology that will shape the future, like semiconductors, quantum computing and artificial intelligence, the U.K. and the U.S. are working together to make sure they are developed safely and responsibly and jointly," Biden continued. 

"We're going to do more on joint research and development to ensure the future we're building remains fundamentally aligned with our values set in both our countries," he added. "And we're doing more to prevent technologies that are invented and developed in our countries from being used for military or intelligence purposes by countries that do share our values." 

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President Joe Biden listens as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, on Thursday, June 8.

Sunak described the Atlantic Declaration as "a new economic partnership for a new age of a kind that has never been agreed before" and "a test case for the kind of re-imagined alliances President Biden has spoken so eloquently about." 

"That means new investment. This week alone, £14 billion of new American investment has been committed into the U.K., creating thousands of jobs," he said.  

"I know people have wondered what kind of partner Britain would be after we left the EU. I'd say judge us by our actions," Sunak also told reporters. "We're committed to our values as ever, as reliable an ally as ever, as attractive an investment destination as ever. But we're changing, too. We're strengthening our relationships not just with old friends like America and in Europe, but with new friends in the Indo-Pacific, too." 

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President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak shake hands at the conclusion of a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, June 8. (AP/Susan Walsh)

Prior to the press conference Thursday, Biden and Sunak held their fourth face-to-face meeting since the latter became prime minister in October. 

It was the first time Sunak has visited Washington, D.C., since assuming the role. 

"Today we also discussed are on wavering support for the people of Ukraine who are defending themselves against the most brutal aggression we've seen in a long time at the hands of Russia and Putin," Biden said. "The U.K. and the United States, together with more than 50 partners, have committed historic levels of security assistance to Ukraine." 

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British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, right, arrives at the White House for a meeting with President Joe Biden, on Thursday in Washington, D.C.  (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Biden also reflected that the two countries have worked through some of the toughest moments in modern history side-by-side, recalling the meetings that Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt held in the White House. 

"You know Prime Minister Churchill and Roosevelt met here a little over 70 years ago and they asserted that the strength of the partnership between Great Britain and the United States was strength of the free world," Biden told Sunak. "I still think there’s truth to that assertion." 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.