Commonwealth nations lining up for trade deals

tHE Commonwealth gave theresa May a trade boost yesterday, as Japan and the United States talked tough on Brexit.

Her australian counterpart Malcolm turnbull said he wanted a ‘very strong’ free trade deal with the UK as soon as we leave the EU.

india’s prime minister narendra Modi is another to have asked Mrs May to start looking at new ‘trade arrangements’ on exit.

Mrs May revealed that a third Commonwealth country, Singapore, had also expressed interest in striking a free trade deal.

and Downing Street said new Zealand had joined australia in offering to lend trade negotiators to the UK to help train deal- makers. Mr turnbull and Mrs May, who were at Oxford University together, discussed trade during face-to-face talks at the G20 summit, in Hangzhou, China.

Mr turnbull, who dispatched his trade minister to London this week, later told reporters australia would be ‘getting in to deal with the British early’ and wanted a ‘very strong, very open free trade agreement’.

Downing Street said Mr turnbull backed Mrs May’s view that big business needs to clean up its act to win public support for an expansion of free trade. a source said the two leaders had a discussion about ‘civilising capitalism’.

Speaking at a press conference in China yesterday, Mrs May insisted world leaders had been receptive to Britain’s trade push, with Mexico also voicing interest in a deal.

‘What i found pleasing and very useful in the discussions i had, particularly in bilaterals with a number of world leaders, is the willingness to talk to us about opening up trade arrangements between the United Kingdom and a number of other countries,’ she said.

But Barack Obama told Mrs May on Sunday he still believes Brexit was a mistake – warning Britain could have to wait years for a trade deal, with the US prioritising relations with Pacific countries and the EU.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo abe also told Mrs May his nation’s firms operating in the UK needed more ‘predictability’ about what Brexit will mean for trade.

in what will be seen as a snub, Mrs May was excluded from a session of US-EU talks at the G20 yesterday.

Barack Obama and US Secretary of State John Kerry held private talks with German Chancellor angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande at the summit in China.