Trump congratulates Johnson as work on new trade deal is announced

U.S. President Donald Trump congratulated Boris Johnson on becoming British prime minister in a phone call on Friday and said work had already begun on a U.S.-British free trade agreement.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office he had just gotten off the phone with Johnson.

“I congratulated him and he’s all set to go,” said Trump.

Trump said any deal could signal a “three to four or five times” increase in trade between the two countries.v”We’re working already on a trade agreement,” he told reporters at the White House. “And I think it’ll be a very substantial trade agreement.

“You know we can do with the UK, we can do three to four times, we were actually impeded by their relationship with the European Union. We were very much impeded on trade. “And I think we can do three to four or five times what we’re doing.

“We don’t do the kind of trade we could do with what some people say is Great Britain.

“And some people, remember a word you don’t hear too much is the word England, which is a piece of it. “But with the UK we could do much, much more trade and we expect to do that.”

via Reuters / The Telegraph