Boris Johnson admitted that a standalone UK-US free trade deal will not bring any imminent value and prospects attached to it, therefore they are looking to join other free trade deals – an unexpected U-turn from the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Boris Johnson paid his first visit to the United States of America as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom earlier this week in which he failed to get a commitment from the American President regarding the free trade agreement between America and the United Kingdom. As a backup plan, he is trying to get into other free trade deals such as that of US-Mexico-Canada.
Boris Johnson gave up on the deal of free trade between the U.K. and the U.S. after stating that President Joe Biden has “a lot of fish to fry.”
Joe Biden hinted that he had no intention of pursuing new bilateral deals with the UK at least before the general elections of 2024.
A senior official of the government had made a suggestion of finding alternative free trade routes, which will benefit trans-Atlantic trade and the United Kingdom can easily join the existing free trade agreement between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico as the easiest option.
Alternatively, it was also discussed to acquire a series of small U.K.-U.S. deals that will also have benefited from the free trade between the two countries.
Boris Johnson had stated, “We’re going to keep going for free-trade deals as fast as we can.” He further said “We’re doing major exports with free-trade deals, including in the United States and I have plenty of reasons to be optimistic about that, but I just, you know that these, the Americans do negotiate very hard. What I want for our country is a great free-trade deal. I won’t settle for anything less.”
According to the sources, Boris Johnson is all set to pursue the USMCA free trade, to become the fourth member. “There are a variety of different ways to do this. The question is whether the U.S. administration is ready. The ball is in the U.S.’s court.” An official from the U.K. government stated.
Currently, the United Kingdom has a more concrete trading agreement with Mexico and Canada as compared to America and this is the point the U.K. officials had emphasized during the meeting last week with their counterparts in the states.
