What can we expect from Liz Truss on foreign policy?

The strong stance on Russia and China, along with promises of increased defence spending, may lead to a more forward international role for Britain on Truss’s watch, writes Kim Sengupta

Liz Truss has taken a hard rhetorical line towards both Russia and China (Simon Dawson/10 Downing Street)

Some of Liz Truss’s forays into foreign affairs and international trade have led to mirth and been held up as examples of her risible lack of international knowledge and gravitas on geopolitics.

There was the time she told Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, that Britain would never accept Moscow’s control over the regions of Rostov and Voronezh, both in Russia, confusing them apparently with Donetsk and Luhansk in occupied Ukraine.

Then there was an impassioned diatribe on the cheese deficit and world trade, decrying British weakness for European varieties – edam, camembert and pecorino – and declaring “That. Is. A. Disgrace”. She had also bemoaned a pork imbalance in the same speech at a Conservative Party conference.