Major trade boost for UK unveiled by US speaker ‘ready to talk’ to Sunak | Politics | News

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who leads the Republican majority in Congress, has told journalists that he intends to speak to Rishi Sunak about UK/ US tradtoday.

Speaker McCarthy took a question today from US political journalist Ksenija Pavlovic McAteer of The Pavlovic Today ahead of his meeting with the Prime Minister.

He said: “I met him [Sunak] years ago, but he represents a great ally in the UK.

“I think there are ways we can work with trade to make our economies stronger as well.”

The meeting was due to take place after the Prime Minister meets President Joe Biden in the White House.

Mr Sunak has focussed his visit on making a deal on developing artificial intelligence (AI) which would put the UK and US on the cutting edge of the new technology.

However, last month Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told the Daily Express US that hopes of a UK/ US trade deal needed to be tempered for now.

Currently, Britain is focussing on individual agreements with US states and will have 20 in place by the end of the year.

But McCarthy’s intervention will provide hope for Brexiteers that the “one stop shop” trade deal they envisaged with the US will put an end to any attempts to take the UK back into the EU.

One possible option is that the US rejoins the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which Britain is about to enter and would mean that the two countries in effect are part of the same trade group.