Liz Truss urges the WTO to become a global force for free trade

What does Britain stand for post-Brexit? What is our role in the world? Mr Steerpike often wonders: it’s not as if Johnson’s administration has always been entirely forthcoming. For all the talk about opening up to the world, being a proud beacon of economic liberalism, the government has been opaque as to what that means.

Today Liz Truss will try to provide some clarity. Britain, she says, will push the World Trade Organisation to reform its ways. In a speech to the Organisation’s General Council — the first a British minister has made since Britain left the European Union and became a WTO member in its own right — she will urge the WTO to become a global force for free and fair trade

Truss, who last week met US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in London to discuss the incoming US-UK trade deal, will criticise ‘industrial subsidies, state-owned enterprises and forced technology transfer’.