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Reuters

Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed Liz Truss as foreign minister on Wednesday, only the second woman to hold the position in Britain.
The daughter of a left-wing professor and a nurse, Truss was a member of the centrist Liberal Democrats at university before her ideological shift to the Conservatives, where in 2014 she made an infamous defence of British cheese.
She supported “remain” in the 2016 Brexit vote but later admitted she had changed her mind.
Johnson rewarded her support during his 2019 leadership campaign with the job of trade minister.
The right-winger now has a bigger stage to pursue Johnson’s vision of a “Global Britain” after Brexit, and has a full diplomatic agenda after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and ahead of the COP26 climate summit in November, in Scotland.
As trade minister for the past two years, Truss has been a strong advocate of Britain’s economic and diplomatic realignment towards the Indo-Pacific region, spearheading efforts to join a trans-Pacific trading bloc. The 46-year-old has struck trade deals around the world, including with Japan and Australia.
Here are some of her views on foreign affairs:
On China
Truss had called for the world to “get tough with China” and has said the World Trade Organization should refuse to treat China as a developing country, a status it currently enjoys.
She has argued that China benefits from exceptions to the rules which were made decades ago and no longer reflect its status as an economic superpower.
Liz Truss: UK must not become dependent on China
“The WTO was established when China was 10 per cent the size of the US economy,” Truss told the Financial Times in an interview earlier this year. “It is ludicrous that it is still self-designating as a developing country.”
Truss said some of China’s behaviour has contributed to an erosion of trust in the global trade system and urged other countries to clamp down on what it sees as unfair subsidies for state-owned enterprises.
“This is the time to get tough on China and their behaviour in the global trading system,” she said.

On the United States
Truss has not succeeded in securing a highly-prized trade deal with the United States, with President Joe Biden’s administration prioritising a complete review of Trump-era trade policy.
However, Truss has helped to negotiate the de-escalation of a long-standing trade dispute over aircraft subsidies and the removal of US tariffs on a range of British exports.
Truss met a series of US libertarian groups that have championed tax cuts and deregulation for businesses in 2018, according to documents cited by Greenpeace. It cited a briefing note as saying Truss wanted to hear “what we can learn from ‘Reaganomics’ on things like regulation and red tape”.
“Reaganomics” is a theory that tax breaks and other benefits for corporations and the wealthy will benefit everyone else, which has been fiercely debated since Reagan made it a centrepiece of his economic strategy in the 1980s.
On the European Union
Truss backed staying in the European Union during the 2016 Brexit referendum but has said she has since changed her mind and has called for Britain to use the opportunity of leaving the EU to transform its economy.
She said on Tuesday that British firms must do more to take advantage of new export routes opened up by Brexit.
“The path to economic revival does not lie in retreating and retrenching but in free trade and free enterprise,” she said.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse


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Britain

Liz Truss is the UK’s new foreign minister. Here are her views on China, US and EU

Britain's newly appointed Britain's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. Photo: AFP

Britain's International Trade Secretary Liz Truss puts up an umbrella to shelter from the rain as she arrives by car to attend the weekly cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street in London on September 14, 2021 (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP)

Britain’s Trade Secretary Liz Truss: UK must not become dependent on China

Britain's Trade Secretary Liz Truss. Photo: Reuters

UK trade secretary Liz Truss urges WTO reform to ‘get tough on China and their behaviour’

British trade secretary Liz Truss. Photo: Reuters

Chinese President Xi Jinping and then British prime minister David Cameron in 2015, before bilateral ties soured. Photo: AFP

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World

Europe


Liz Truss replaces Dominic Raab as foreign minister
She has called for the world to ‘get tough with China’



Liz Truss, only the second woman to hold the foreign minister’s position in Britain, has called for the world to ‘get tough with China’.


China-UK relations

Diplomacy

Liz Truss

Liz Truss is the UK’s new foreign minister. Here are her views on China, US and EU

Liz Truss replaces Dominic Raab as foreign minister She has called for the world to ‘get tough with China’

Liz Truss replaces Dominic Raab as foreign minister

She has called for the world to ‘get tough with China’