Liz Truss reportedly thinks UK-US trade deal before 2023 is unlikely
International trade secretary Liz Truss is reportedly resigned to not closing a UK-US trade deal before 2023 as she prepares to travel to Washington today.
Truss will go to the US to meet Joe Biden’s Trade Representative Katherine Tai as a part of a five-day working trip, which will also include a stop in California.
The Department for International Trade said the trip will see the pair discuss how to “combat market-distorting trade practices such as industrial subsidies and dumping”, with China likely to be high on the agenda.
The pair will also discuss progress on the post-Brexit UK-US trade deal.
Last year Truss said her team was working on getting a deal done by midway this year in order to get it sealed before the White House’s current Fast Track Authority, which allows trade deals to bypass Congress, runs out.
However, a source close to Truss told the Sunday Telegraph that a deal is unlikely to be signed before 2023.
“Liz is playing the long game and wants to build a much broader base of support for a deal in the US domestic market, which is why we’re heading to California as well as DC,” they said.
“We want the backing of the American public, key industries like tech, and the political class, and Liz is out there to get that and bang the drum for Britain.”
In a statement released today, Truss said: “Workers in both the UK and US have suffered when their products are unfairly undercut. 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.
“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. Together we can build on our credentials as two great innovating nations, and take this opportunity to shape the future of digital trade.”
The deal is believed to be around half-way completed, however there are a number of stumbling blocks.
These include the status of US agricultural exports and American food safety standards.
Boris Johnson’s former chief aide Dominic Cummings said last week that he did not think a US trade deal would ever happen.
The UK and US are also currently working on an agreement to reopen quarantine-free travel between the two nations.
The taskforce was announced at last month’s G7 summit, however there are now fears any deal will not be done before the end of summer.