Truss seen as a ‘huge advantage’ to NZ

Trade Minister Damien O’connor says the decision to make Liz Truss the United Kingdom’s new prime minister provides New Zealand a ‘‘huge advantage’’.

O’connor has met and spoken with Truss on numerous occasions, negotiating the UK-NZ Free Trade Agreement with her when she was former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s trade secretary.

He said Truss was ‘‘committed, energetic, and very ambitious’’ and it was no surprise the British Conservative Party chose her to lead the country.

‘‘Her knowledge of our interests, through negotiating the free trade agreement, are a huge advantage, when I guess the alternative candidate would have had far less knowledge of our country,’’ he said.

Truss moved from UK foreign secretary to prime minister overnight Wednesday (NZ Time), taking the reins from Johnson, who resigned after a series of scandals had him lose his party’s support.

The new prime minister’s first challenge will be a domestic energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with reports suggesting she will cap energy bills through a taxpayer-funded subsidy.

Truss has cast herself as a small-government libertarian, in the style of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and as an ardent free trader.

She had opposed Brexit, shifting her position afterward to become a supporter of the separation from the European Union.

‘‘She’s very committed to connect Britain, post-brexit, with the world through trade agreements and through foreign policy, and she’s obviously served in both those roles, and so I’m assuming that will continue with energy,’’ O’connor said.

‘‘We are the beneficiaries of her commitment and energy to our UK free trade agreement.’’

O’connor was on Tuesday travelling to the United States to join talks for another trade agreement: the United States’ Indo-pacific Economic Framework.

The framework is a Biden Administration initiative, which New Zealand helped launch, to build a multi-country agreement in the region covering digital economy, supply chain resilience, clean energy, and fairness – such as tax enforcement and antibribery.

O’connor said it was still ‘‘early days’’ for the new agreement.