James Forsyth James Forsyth

The looming Tory trade debate

Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Post-Brexit, the UK needs to find allies on trade liberalisation. One obvious place to look is the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership. The UK is keen to join this group of 11 countries, as Liz Truss reiterated at a Policy Exchange event this afternoon. The Singaporean trade minister emphasised how keen he would be to see the UK join, and how this would send a message about the role that the UK wishes to play in the world post-Brexit. 

Interestingly, he also warned that the government needs to prepare domestic businesses for the change this would bring to prevent any anti-trade backlash. In her remarks, Truss implicitly accepted that there isn’t going to be much multilateral progress on trade liberalisation, and so the plurilateral option offered by the Trans-Pacific Partnership is the next best thing.

It is clearly American history week for the cabinet. Truss joined in with the praise for FDR that has come from Boris Johnson and Michael Gove this week.

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