Latest updates: PM dampens expectations of progress on UK-US trade deal and says Biden has ‘a lot of fish to fry’
- Johnson hails lifting of US travel ban but says trade deal progress unlikely
- Kwarteng admits ‘difficult winter’ ahead as energy bills soar
- Coronavirus global updates – live
These are from Newsnight’s Lewis Goodall on what Boris Johnson said about the proposed UK/US trade deal. (See 9.31am.)
Revealing in a number of ways this
1) A deal (for all sorts of reasons) was always a remote possibility.
2) Rare admission (and contrary to most govt mood music) of limits of UK political sway.
3) But doesn’t matter much because as we know, they don’t add much to GDP anyway. https://t.co/1lYSv7NdCF
Many Brexiters and ministers emphasised repeatedly the benefits of a US deal (the biggest deal available from any single country, so the biggest single state post-Brexit trade prize). This is the firmest indication yet that it won’t happen any time soon.
Indeed, you might argue that what PM is saying, in stating that Biden has other “fish to fry” isn’t so far away from President Obama’s 2016 “back of the queue”. This is something then Mayor Johnson decried at the time. https://t.co/XDzAGfNHuL
Obama was talking about slightly different things- saying US would prefer to make a deal with big trade blocs. But both Obama then and Johnson curiously now, was/are making a similar point- that the UK could only expect so much attention on a Capitol Hill with a full agenda.
That is a shift in what we’ve heard from the PM and ministers before.
Good morning. It turns out the UK has ended up near the “back of the queue” after all. For five years now, since the referendum, Brexiters have been talking up the prospects of a free trade deal with the US, which, according to the enthusiasts, was going to offer huge benefits to the UK and was just around the corner. Shortly after becoming prime minister in 2019, Boris Johnson even said he would like to see it concluded within a year.
But now Johnson has admitted, in terms, that Barack Obama was right, and that a trade deal with the UK is not a priority for Washington. Asked when it was happening, Johnson told reporters travelling with him to the US: “I wouldn’t hold your breath.” He went on:
The reality is that Joe [Biden] has a lot of fish to fry. He’s got a huge infrastructure package, he’s got a build back better package. We want to do it, but what we want is a good free trade agreement. And I would much rather get a deal that really works for the UK than get a quick deal.
Related: Johnson hails lifting of US travel ban but says trade deal progress unlikely
I don’t think it’s on the back burner, but I think what the prime minister said – in fact, I know that’s what he thinks and what’s what he said – is that it’s much better to take our time to get a really good deal with US than simply to rush the process and get a bad deal.
I’m hopeful that we can we can we can get there, but I can’t give you a time as to how long it will take. Trade deals can can take very different amounts of time and I can’t possibly guess how long this one will particular one will take.
The government had many years to do a wide-reaching trade deal with America under the Trump administration.
It could have been done by now, but May and Johnson completely blew it. https://t.co/CN590oaR7K
Related: Government hoping to reach deal to fix CO2 crisis, as food shortages loom – business live
