There’s no US trade deal for Boris Johnson yet – and that’s just fine

The economic benefits of any pact were always going to be limited, and the UK would inevitably have to give up a lot to get them, writes James Moore

Johnson makes nice with Joe Biden but it’s no deal on a trade deal (AP)

A shiny new US trade deal was hailed as one of the chief virtues of Brexit, but we can now add it to the pile of broken promises from the campaign to leave the EU.

President Joe Biden told Boris Johnson, in so many words, exactly what Barack Obama told the British people before the runaway Brexit train smashed into the buffers of reality: Britain is at the back of the queue.

That hasn’t stopped the government’s obsession with its white whale. It’s now changing the harpoon, considering an attempt to join the US-Canada-Mexico free trade deal that succeeded Nafta after Donald Trump tore up the latter.