Alongside meetings with President Joe Biden, U.S. business leaders and members of Congress, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will take in a baseball game during a Washington trip that starts June 7, 2023. He may be given the honor of throwing the first pitch; many at home will be hoping he doesn’t drop the ball.

It is a high-stakes visit for Sunak, his first to Washington since becoming prime minister in October 2022. The British leader will be keen to showcase his close relationship with Biden. And he will want to underscore his more stable and pragmatic foreign policy, in contrast to his predecessors, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

Yet Sunak, despite being prime minister for less than a year, is under great pressure. His party remains far behind in the polls, less than 18 months before the next general election is held in the U.K.

He has little time to burnish his credentials as a leader, and Washington may not be the most fertile ground to do so. Bilateral relations between London and Washington have been thorny in recent years, and three topics illustrate the challenges – and possible opportunities – ahead for Sunak: trade, Northern Ireland and security.

Sunak and Biden will have a busy agenda during talks due to take place in the Oval Office on June 8, but one topic will be conspicuously absent. As a Downing Street spokesperson confirmed prior to the trip: “We are not seeking to push a free trade agreement with the U.S. currently.”

This is in stark contrast to what Sunak’s Conservative Party manifesto had touted in the 2019 general election – the second to take place since a 2016 referendum upset the U.K.‘s trading setup by triggering the country’s exit from the European Union.

The document promised that in a post-Brexit U.K., 80% of trade would be covered by free trade agreements within three years.

Negotiations for a trade deal with the U.S. began in 2020 under the Trump administration, but made limited progress. The pandemic, and the question of access of U.S. agricultural goods to the U.K. market, further disrupted talks. In particular, U.K. concerns about differing food standard practices in the U.S., such as chlorine-washed chicken or hormone-treated beef, complicated discussions.

Yet the broad ideological shift in American attitudes toward trade proved the main obstacle. Since taking office, the Biden administration has consistently expressed its skepticism of emulating past free-trade agreements. According to the administration, these deals have too often ended up impoverishing American workers, while enriching multinational firms.

That shift on trade policy is not limited to members of the administration. Both Democrats and Republicans, even if for different reasons, have become more critical of unfettered globalization.

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