LONDON (Reuters) - Ireland's foreign minister Simon Coveney said on Saturday that Britain was demonstrating "perverse nationalism" by seeking to reach a trade deal with the United States before the European Union and questioned whether it was a trustworthy partner. It's a perverse nationalism when actually Britain and the EU should work together as partners," he said in an interview with The Times newspaper. Coveney advocated Britain working with the EU and Canada to reach a joint trade deal with the United States, although the EU does not currently have plans for a major U.S. trade deal. Prime Minister Boris Johnson views the ability to strike trade deals as one of the main benefits of Brexit and sees a deal with the United States as a big potential prize. "My position and the government's position in terms of the grace period we've got for chilled meats at the moment is not that at the end of that grace period there is a cliff edge; it's that we use the grace period to get a permanent solution to ensure that those products can continue to flow," Lewis said.

Source: The Star March 12, 2021 11:04 UTC