Liz Truss has admitted ahead of her first bilateral meeting with Joe Biden.
The new prime minister admitted talks are unlikely to start in the “medium term” as she traveled to New York on her first trip abroad since entering Downing Street.
In a move that could disappoint Brexiters, he downplayed expectations that any trade deal was imminent amid concerns that over-promising but then failing to get the talks through would hurt his fledgling administration.
On the plane to the United States, Truss admitted to reporters: “There are currently no negotiations with the US and I have no expectation that they will begin in the short to medium term.”
It is the first time the government has admitted there is virtually no chance of an agreement on a first bilateral trade deal with the United States, Britain’s biggest trading partner, although it is coveted by Brexit supporters as a of the main potential benefits of leaving the EU. .
Instead, the new prime minister said her priorities would be to join the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership of 11 countries, including Australia, Canada and Singapore, as well as strike deals with the Gulf States and India.
He added that his “number one” focus in talks with Biden at the UN on Wednesday would be global security, particularly working with US and European partners to deal with Russian aggression in Ukraine.
Truss’ relations with the US president have already been strained by her threats as foreign secretary to tear up post-Brexit trade deals in Northern Ireland.
Biden has warned that peace in the province should not be undermined by the dispute and, as a result, has been reluctant to reach a trade deal with Britain.
UK officials have tried to disentangle the two issues, highlighting mini-trade deals signed with individual states, including Indiana and North Carolina, to boost transatlantic trade.
In the White House last year, Boris Johnson’s hopes of an early post-Brexit trade deal were dashed after Biden made it clear publicly that it was not on the cards.
The former prime minister was left talking about the “solid incremental steps” achieved in trade after the US began allowing UK lamb imports for the first time in decades.
Instead, former President Donald Trump had promised a “massive” trade deal to back Brexit, although Washington experts had warned he would expect concessions in return.
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During Truss’ two-day trip to New York, he will hold a series of bilateral meetings with other key leaders, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron.
It will be the first official meeting between the pair since Truss’ comments during the Tory leadership race that the “jury is out” on whether Macron was “friend or foe”.
In what appeared to be a softening of her stance, Truss told reporters she wanted to have a “constructive” relationship with France, working with Macron on migration, Brexit, energy security and Ukraine.
However, aides later suggested that a rapprochement was not planned and that the Prime Minister had simply wanted to be diplomatic on the day of the Queen’s funeral.