Liz Truss has admitted that a trade deal between the UK and America remains years away.
Speaking to reporters on her way to the United National general assembly in New York, the prime minister said: “There aren’t currently any negotiations taking place with the US and I don’t have an expectation that those are going to start in the short to medium term.”
Which rather put her at odds her predecessor, Boris Johnson, whose comments on the prospects of a trade deal back in 2019 are now being widely shared on Twitter.
The then PM confidently declared: “We hear that we’re first in line to do a great free trade deal with the United States.”
But Johnson isn’t the only Tory who once claimed that a trade deal with Washington was on the cards.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph in 2019 after being appointed international trade secretary, a certain Liz Truss said: “My main priority now will be agreeing a free trade deal with the US.”
If her comments today are to be believed, that elusive trade deal now seems as far away as ever.
Twitter users were quick to point out that Truss’s comments flew in the face of predictions made by Brexiteers when the UK voted to leave the EU.