Rishi Sunak remains committed to re-establishing power-sharing arrangements in Northern Ireland "as quickly as possible".

Mr Sunak will welcome Joe Biden to Belfast later today as part of the UK President’s visit to the island of Ireland.

But the visit risks being overshadowed by a failure to see power-sharing return to Stomont after the DUP has refused to engage in devolution returning to Northern Ireland over Brexit.

Downing Street has denied that the Prime Minister has given up on getting the DUP back into power-sharing.

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Asked whether Mr Sunak’s lack of plans to meet Northern Ireland political leaders during his visit there this week was a sign of having given up on the Democratic Unionists returning to Stormont, a No 10 spokesman said: “No, not at all.

“It’s the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland’s priority to get the executive up and running and he has had extensive engagement with the Northern Ireland political parties, as has the Prime Minister, over recent months.

“You’ll be aware that he met with leaders over the past few months with regards specifically to the Windsor Framework.

“Our continued hope is that we can get Stormont back up and running as quickly as possible.”

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Downing Street has also said that it would not characterise Mr Sunak’s engagements with President Biden in Northern Ireland this week as low-key.

Asked about the White House reportedly scaling back their interaction from a bilateral event to a less formal coffee meeting, a No 10 spokesman said: “The Prime Minister will meet with President Biden to discuss areas of mutual interest.”

Asked why the plans appeared low-key, he replied: “I wouldn’t characterise it as that. As I’ve said the Prime Minister will see him tonight, he will see him again tomorrow.

“You’ve seen the president’s actions during his time demonstrate that we have a close relationship. His first visit outside of North America was to the UK, where he met both the Queen and the Prince of Wales.”

“We continue to have an incredibly positive working relationships with the president and the US government.”

The prospect of an imminent UK-US free trade deal has been played down by the Tory government.

Asked whether progress could be expected to be made during Mr Sunak’s meeting with Mr Biden, a No 10 spokesman said: “A free trade agreement is not the only way of strengthening the UK-US trade relationship.

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“We already have an incredibly good level of trade with the US which we’ve spoken about before. I believe it’s already worth 223 billion a year.

“Our focus is still in boosting American investments in the UK and increasing access to US markets for our businesses, and ultimately trying to secure lower prices for UK consumers.

“So we will continue to work with the US government but I’d also point to the fact that we’re also deepening our trade relationships with individual states.”