THE United Kingdom is moving forward on trade engagement with individual American states, and stands ready to resume talks with Washington on a broader federal deal, Secretary of State for International Trade Anne-Marie Trevelyan said.

“One of my ministers, Penny Mordaunt, is presently in California, having exactly those conversations and she’ll be also visiting Georgia and Tennessee, South Carolina, and Oklahoma,” Trevelyan said Monday in an interview.

She said she understands why the Biden administration is focused on its domestic agenda rather than pushing forward trade talks, adding “we stand ready to pick up and continue those negotiations with the team as and when there’s the capacity to do so.”

The frozen talks over a free-trade agreement are a headache for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has long touted a U.S. deal as one of the great prizes of the Brexit campaign he spearheaded.

Proponents of leaving the European Union argued it would allow the United Kingdom to negotiate more favorable trade terms, tailored to its own economy.

As foreign secretary in 2017, Johnson boasted that the United Kingdom was now “first in line to do a great free-trade deal with the United States.” Four years later, talks on an all-encompassing deal have stalled, and discussions over steel tariffs suggest the United Kingdom now has a weaker hand post-Brexit.

The Trump administration imposed a 25 percent steel tariff, along with a 10 percent duty on aluminum imports, in March 2018 on a range of nations, using a national-security provision in a 1962 trade law.

The EU in October brokered a deal with the United States to ease those tariffs.(SD-Agencies)