Britain lowers sights on US trade deal
The likelihood of the United Kingdom striking a trade deal with the United States any earlier than 2023 is low, according to the UK’s international trade secretary Liz Truss.
Truss started a five-day visit to the US from Sunday to meet US Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
She had already held five rounds of talks with representatives of the administration of former president Donald Trump, but this trip will mark her first discussions with staff members of the current administration, and Joe Biden’s people will have their own opinions on any conclusions that had previously been reached.
Biden’s first overseas visit as president last month was to the G7 summit in the UK, where he held talks with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. However, these talks were described as being about “progression” toward a future trade deal which would create jobs and bring new opportunities to both countries, rather than something more substantial.
Biden has also shown far more inclination toward Europe than Trump did, and there have been several warnings from Washington about the ongoing disagreement over the status of Northern Ireland as part of the Brexit deal will have a significant bearing on the likelihood of any transatlantic trade deal.
In November 2017, Wilbur Ross, who served as commerce secretary under the Trump administration, was quoted by The Times newspaper as calling Brexit a “God-given opportunity” to steal business from the UK. Ross urged financiers in Cyprus to take advantage of the period of confusion following its exit from the European Union.
Alternative arrangements
Despite this, Brexit supporters regularly talked up the chances of a trade deal with the US as a big prize to be won during and after the 2016 referendum campaign, as the country sought alternative trade arrangements upon its departure from the EU.
According to a Daily Telegraph report published on Saturday, Truss “is playing the long game and wants to build a much broader base of support for a deal in the US domestic market” and does not think any possible deal would be likely before the US midterm elections scheduled for November 2022.
Apart from speaking to politicians in Washington, Truss was also scheduled to visit California to talk to leading figures in the technology sector, as she believes their support could help Britain’s case in trade negotiations.
“We must work together with our friends and allies in the US to protect free enterprise from practices like industrial subsidies and intellectual property theft, which give trade a bad name,” she was quoted as saying in the Evening Standard.
“With UK-US trade supporting over a million jobs in both countries, there is clear reason to work together to deepen our trade and investment ties and build back better.”