US president says it’s time to reopen businesses as US deaths top 70,000; UK deaths second-highest worldwide. Follow the latest updates
- Trump poised to wind down Covid-19 taskforce as US death toll tops 70,000
- Top UK adviser resigns after breaking lockdown rules
- Coronavirus latest: at a glance
- Australia coronavirus updates - live
- See all our coronavirus coverage
The United States and Britain launched formal negotiations on a free trade agreement on Tuesday, vowing to work quickly to seal a deal that could counter the massive drag of the coronavirus pandemic on trade flows and the two allies’ economies, Reuters reports.
The talks, to be conducted virtually, will involve over 300 US and UK staff and officials in nearly 30 negotiating groups, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and UK trade minister Liz Truss said in a joint statement.
The first round of talks began as new US data showed a record drop in US. exports and a contraction in the vast US service sector for the first time in over a decade.
It is Washington’s first major new trade negotiation in 2020. London has also been working out trade terms with the European Union following its exit from the bloc in January.
US President Donald Trump also urged China to be transparent about the origins of the novel coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than a quarter of a million people since it started in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
Speaking before leaving on a trip to Arizona, Trump said the United States would release a report detailing the origins of the virus, but gave no details or timeline.
“We will be reporting very definitively over a period of time,” Trump told reporters.
While taking aim at China as the source of the outbreak and warning that it would be held to account, Trump and officials in his administration have expressed differing levels of confidence about the exact origin of the virus.
from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2W6Y5Or
