By Oyintari Ben
In a shocking post-Brexit U-turn, Liz Truss has given up on a trade agreement with the US.
Years have been spent focusing on a transatlantic trade agreement with America as the reward for leaving the EU by successive Conservative governments, of which Ms. Truss has been an important component.
However, the new Prime Minister abruptly abandoned her hopes for a deal with the White House “in the near to medium term.”
The revelation came as she was getting ready for a meeting with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, which will leave supporters who claimed the UK could easily create a multibillion-pound deal with the US in shock.
Former Foreign Secretary Ms. Truss acknowledged to reporters on board her Airbus A321-LR 35,000 feet above the Atlantic on Monday night that she would give priority to joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam are parties to the agreement.
Additionally, she seeks trade agreements with India and the Gulf Cooperation Council, which consists of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
These are our top trade priorities, Ms. Truss said, adding that she was aiming for “CTPPT accession, a trade deal with India, and a trade pact with the GCC.”
“No negotiations with the US are currently underway, and I don’t anticipate that they will begin in the near or medium term.”
The admission effectively puts on hold any trade agreements for years—possibly for more than a decade.
According to reports, Ms. Truss decided to acknowledge early on in her tenure as prime minister that a US trade agreement was off the table because she thought it wouldn’t dominate her meetings with the US President in New York.
The Northern Ireland Protocol, a crucial component of the post-Brexit trade agreement with the EU that averts a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic – the UK’s only land border with the bloc – is what she is trying to convince him to renegotiate.
