President Joe Biden celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement on Wednesday, emphasizing the significance of the peace deal and reaffirming the United States’ commitment to Northern Ireland’s growth.

Biden was still a senator in Congress when he helped negotiate the Good Friday Agreement, which mostly ended decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, in 1998. The deal “shifted the political gravity in our world,” he said in Belfast on Wednesday, day two of a trip that will take him to both Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and Ireland.

Preserving peace in Northern Ireland is also one of the few topics that Democrats and Republicans can agree on nowadays, he said, underscoring the importance of showing continued support to the region.

“Where barbed wire one sliced up the city, today we find a cathedral of learning built of glass that lets the [light shine] in and out,” Biden said. The agreement “just has a profound impact for someone who has come back to see it. It’s an incredible testament to the power and the possibilities of peace.”

Critics, however, say the agreement is failing, citing a lack of elected governance in Northern Ireland over the past year, which has led to dysfunction. The United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union has also hurt the region, causing it to lose tens of millions in annual EU funds this month alone.

But Northern Ireland has prospered overall since the agreement, Biden noted. Its gross domestic product has doubled, an initial number he expects to triple if growth stays on track as American businesses continue investing in the region. Biden also nodded, as he often does, to Irish arts and culture, which has produced world-renowned poetry, movies and television shows in recent years.

Much of that growth has been driven by young people, he added, who will push Northern Ireland forward in widening fields like cyber and clean energy.

“It’s up to us to keep this going,” he said, pledging to “sustain the peace, unleash this incredible economic opportunity, which is just beginning … Your history is our history. But even more important, your future is America’s future.”

Later this year, Joe Kennedy III, the U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs, will lead a trade delegation of American companies to Northern Ireland, Biden announced.

Following the speech, the president plans to travel to the Irish Republic for the first time since he traced his lineage through the countryside as vice president in 2016.