UK truce doesn t expect UK US trade deal anytime soon
Categories: US NEWS UK NEWS
UK truce doesn'texpect UK-US trade deal anytime soon
PrimeMinister Liz Trusshas kicked off her first visit to the United States as Britain’s leader with anadmission that a U.K-U.S. free trade deal is not going to happen foryears.Truss said a trans-Atlantic deal is not one of her priorities — a sharpcontrast with the stance of her immediate predecessors as Conservative primeminister, Boris Johnson and Theresa May. Both dangled the promise of a dealwith the world’s biggest economy as one of the main prizes of Britain’s exitfrom the European Union.
“There(aren’t) currently any negotiations taking place with the U.S., and I don’thave an expectation that those are going to start in the short to medium term,” Truss told reporters aboard herplane to New York, where she landed Tuesday to attend the United Nations GeneralAssembly.
Truss saidshe was more focused on obtaining accession to the Trans-Pacific tradepartnership and striking trade deals with India and the Gulf CooperationCouncil of states including Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Truss’s downbeatassessment about trans-Atlantic trade came ahead of her first one-on-onemeeting with President Joe Biden since she took office two weeks ago. The twoleaders are due to meet Wednesday on the sidelines of the U.N. gathering in NewYork. Both were among scores of world leaders who attended the funeral of QueenElizabeth II in London on Monday.
U.K.-U.S.trade talks werelaunched with fanfare soon after Britain left the EU in 2020, but negotiationsfaltered amid rising concern in the U.S. administration about the impact ofBrexit, especially on Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is the only part ofthe United Kingdom that shares a border with an EU member, and Brexit hasbrought new customs checks and paperwork for Northern Ireland trade, an issuethat has spiraled into a political crisis for the power-sharing government inBelfast.
Trusscampaigned for Conservative leader on a promise to shake up Britain’seconomy by cutting taxes, slashing regulation and attracting moreinvestment to the U.K. But the start of her term has been dominated bythe death and commemorations of Queen Elizabeth II, which put Truss’s politicalplans on hold during a 10-day period of national mourning.
The war inUkraine will be topmost in Truss’s message when she makes her debutspeech to the United Nations as British leader on Wednesday, urging moresupport for Kyiv and calling on nations to stop buying Russian oil and gas.
After theUnited States, the United Kingdom has been one of the biggestcontributors of military and civilian aid to Ukraine. Truss wants to reassureallies that she’ll maintain the staunch support shown by Johnson. She willpromise that in 2023 Britain will “match or exceed” the 2.3 billion pounds($2.7 billion) in military aid given to Ukraine this year.