UK's Fox says important to steer U.S. away from protectionism

[July 20, 2017]  GENEVA (Reuters) - Britain is looking at all bilateral tools for increasing trade ties with the United States, but it also wants to steer Washington from a trade policy that is too protectionist, British trade minister Liam Fox said on Thursday.

Britain's Secretary of State for International Trade, Liam Fox, arrives in Downing Street, in central London, Britain July 17, 2017. REUTERS/Tolga Akmen

"It's very important that we keep the United States oriented toward an open free trading approach because it is the world's biggest economy and what happens there will affect everybody else," Fox told an audience of diplomats and academics in Geneva.

"So I think directing the debate away from some of the protectionist noises into a free market rules-based debate is a very important discussion for us to have."

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Gareth Jones)

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