The rest of the world has largely made up its mind about the Northern Ireland Protocol, the arrangement that the European Union demanded as the price of Brexit. The story, for most overseas observers, goes something like this:

“Britain promised under the original peace deal to keep the Irish border open. Because leaving the EU means having a different customs and regulatory regime, there has to be a border somewhere. In order to preserve the peace in Ireland, the EU insisted that Northern Ireland be treated, for regulatory purposes, as part of its own market, meaning that checks on goods take place between Great Britain and Northern Ireland rather than between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Now, Boris Johnson is trying to renege on the deal.”