Kemi: Blame Biden for UK failure to get a post-Brexit US trade deal
As Trump batters his remaining Republican rival
KEMI Badenoch has blamed Donald Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat for the Government’s failure to secure a free trade deal with the US – a key goal of the UK’s post-Brexit plans.
The Business Secretary claimed President Joe Biden’s White House moved away from such deals, instead preferring to strike ‘smaller packages on single issues’.
She said the change in administrations in Washington had been why the Government missed its manifesto pledge to strike trade deals by the end of 2022 with countries that account for 80 per cent of British trade.
Mrs Badenoch told MPs on the Business and Trade Committee: ‘The biggest thing that had an impact on us
‘Biden administration was not doing deals’
reaching that objective was the change in administration from President Trump to President Biden. We were carrying out negotiations for a US FTA [ free trade agreement]. The administration changed and the Biden administration is not doing FTAs.’
Her comments came on Tuesday just hours before Mr Trump pressured his closest rival for the Republican candidacy to drop out of the contest after beating her in New Hampshire, winning 54.5 per cent of the vote.
The former president seethed as he told Nikki Haley, a former UN ambassador, to stop the ‘bulls***’ after she gained just 43.2 per cent of ballots cast.
Mrs Haley got under the skin of Mr Trump with a raucous speech, telling her supporters: ‘This race is far from over.’
While the margin of her loss was half what was expected, Mrs Haley is still losing to Mr Trump in the polls for every other state that will choose the Republican candidate to take on Mr Biden in November.
Even Mr Biden acknowledged it was ‘clear Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee’.
The New Hampshire primary was the second chance for Republicans to choose their candidate for the presidential election. Mr Trump already won Iowa in a ballot open only to Republicans in a deeply conservative state. Yet in New Hampshire, independent voters had their say, meaning it was closer to the conditions of the general election.
Mrs Haley had been predicted to lose to Mr Trump by 19 points, though in the end it was a margin of just 11 points.
Mr Trump appeared irate, saying: ‘ Wow, she’s doing a speech like she won. She didn’t win. She lost. Let’s not have somebody take a victory when she had a very bad night. You can’t let people get away with bulls***. When I watched her in the fancy dress that probably wasn’t so fancy, I said, “What’s she doing? We won”.’
Yet Mrs Haley insisted she was ‘going home to South Carolina’, where polls show her losing to Mr Trump by 30 points even though she is a former governor of the state.
‘I’m scrappy – and now we’re the last ones standing next to Trump,’ she added. Democrats want Mr Trump to be the Republican nominee as he is seen as their greatest asset in motivating their voters.
Mr Biden’s approval ratings stand at just 33 per cent, the lowest since former President George W Bush’s between 2006 to 2008. Democrats held their primary in New Hampshire at the same time and Mr Biden won, though he was not formally on the ballot.