Truss visits Mexico to boost support for UK joining CPTPP

Britain's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is to visit Mexico on Thursday as she seeks to enhance economic and diplomatic partnerships in the country, and the wider region.

Ms Truss will travel directly from the UN General Assembly in New York to Mexico City to boost UK trade and investment in Mexico, expected to be the world’s seventh biggest economy by 2050.

The Foreign Secretary will also seek Mexico’s continued support to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) - a free trade area that could see 99.9 per cent of UK exports being eligible for tariff-free trade in Japan, Canada, Australia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Singapore, Mexico, Peru, Brunei, Chile and Malaysia.

By the end of 2022, the CPTPP will be one of the world’s largest free trade areas, with the UK its second largest economy after Japan.

Ms Truss will also discuss plans to develop a new, updated UK-Mexico free trade agreement, which she sees as a key part of Britain’s tilt towards the Indo-Pacific and the creation of stronger economic ties between countries who believe in rules-based free trade.

During her visit, the Foreign Secretary is expected to talk to her Mexican counterpart, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard.

Ms Truss said of her visit: “Closer ties with Mexico are a key part of our plan to strengthen economic, security and diplomatic links with like-minded allies who share our belief in free enterprise and free trade.

“A trade deal with Mexico, for example, will pave the way for us to join the CPTPP, one of the world’s biggest free trade areas.

“Our relationship with Mexico has huge potential. It could open vast new opportunities for businesses, support jobs across Britain, and help ensure we play a key role in an open and dynamic Indo-Pacific.”

She will formally open the new British Embassy building in Mexico City, after the previous one was damaged in the 2017 earthquake.

Ms Truss will also attend a dinner with celebrity British-Mexican chef Fernando Stovell, who has held three Michelin stars and cooked for Queen Elizabeth II.

Family reunited

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was born and raised in Tehran and studied English literature before working as a translator in the relief effort for the Japanese International Co-operation Agency in 2003.

She moved to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies before moving to the World Health Organisation as a communications officer.

She came to the UK in 2007 after securing a scholarship at London Metropolitan University to study a master's in communication management and met her future husband through mutual friends a month later.

The couple were married in August 2009 in Winchester and their daughter was born in June 2014.

She was held in her native country a year later.

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