LONDON — Around the world, governments are slowly waking up to a new reality: Liz Truss is about to become prime minister of the United Kingdom. London-based diplomats are scrambling to report their capitals with information about the Conservative leadership front-runner as each new poll offers further evidence that – barring some last-minute disaster – Truss is headed for 10 Downing Street. In fact, few foreign powers really like what they’ve seen. More than a dozen conversations with senior diplomats and insiders from power centers around the world suggest that Truss is not exactly a popular choice on the world stage. It will be met with deep skepticism in much of Western Europe and in the Biden White House. There are questions about relations with the new Australian government. She is despised in Moscow and Beijing. On the other hand, Truss is quite popular in Eastern European states and parts of the Indo-Pacific. So it’s not all bad. Supporters say Truss’ expected rise to the world stage is far from overdue, with potential conservative allies in the US, Germany and Australia having been ousted from national elections in the past two years. But its relations with EU countries are undoubtedly clouded by the bitter row over how to trade in the Irish Sea after Brexit while keeping both Northern Irish unionists and republicans happy. Hopes in Brussels and other EU capitals that the new UK foreign secretary would prove a friendly negotiator evaporated last spring when she unveiled controversial legislation that would allow UK ministers to de-activate parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol, a key element of Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. to accusations that Britain is preparing to violate international law. “We have a negative impression, not based on her intentions, but her actions,” said a London-based diplomat from a major EU country. “A new leader is always a new opportunity for a reset, but we’ll have to see if he takes steps towards rebuilding trust, which is much needed.” A Brussels-based diplomat gave an even more disparaging assessment: “Liz Truss has seemed really, really poor from an EU perspective. What she has shown, since she became foreign secretary and as she took over the Brexit negotiations, was just very negative”. Virtually no politician in Dublin has a good word to say about Truss, given its close association with the protocol bill. “We’ve been burned by six years of Conservative prime ministers,” said Neil Richmond, European affairs spokesman for Fine Gael, the most pro-European of the three parties in Ireland’s coalition government. “I don’t think the next one will be any better.” Dublin newspaper the Irish Times dismissed her as “an ineffective foreign secretary who campaigned against Brexit and then cheered it”. Some politicians remain optimistic that talks with the EU might be easier if Truss became prime minister — simply because she is not outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson | Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images Two senior diplomats from different countries in southern Europe expressed concern about Truss’ “impulsivity” in foreign affairs, warning that it could further fuel tensions.
DC confidential
Truss’ sponsorship of the Northern Ireland protocol bill has certainly disappointed the Biden administration and members of the US Congress, as POLITICO reported last week. Democratic middlemen, including US President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have repeatedly spoken of their fear that Brexit policies will destroy the hard-won peace in Ireland. They want the Good Friday Agreement to be preserved at all costs and to stop Brussels and London wasting energy on avoidable conflicts. Pelosi in May called efforts to rewrite the protocol “deeply troubling.” Truss hit back last week, telling a campaign audience in Northern Ireland that she would not be swayed by the speaker of the House. “I’ve been very clear with people like Nancy Pelosi exactly what I think about it,” she said. A member of Truss’s campaign insisted she has “good relations with her American counterparts”. Some politicians remain optimistic that talks with the EU might actually be easier if he became prime minister – simply because he is not outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson and is more like a “negotiator and reliable partner”, said Bert Lang, a German member. of the European Parliament participating in the EU-UK contact group. But even if Truss did want a reset with the EU, others doubt her Tory MPs would allow it. “The big question is how much he will serve the Brexiteers in the party,” said a Scandinavian envoy in London.
From Australia with love
Officials and foreign policy experts in Brussels, Berlin and Paris also lament the Trust’s reluctance so far to cultivate close ties with key European capitals in the way it has with one of the most geographically distant from Britain – Canberra. The UK’s security cooperation with Australia has intensified since Brexit through the Five Eyes alliance and the AUKUS defense partnership, while Truss has also sought Canberra’s approval for Britain to join the 11-nation Pacific trade club , known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Her regular speaking engagements at Australian-based think tanks have been noted on both sides of the globe. During her tenure as UK international trade secretary, Truss controversially hired former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott to the UK Trade Council. In return, he called her a “worthy successor” to Johnson last week. Truss controversially hires former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott to UK Trade Council | Ryan Pierse/Getty Images But Abbott’s Liberal Party is now out of power and Truss faces a challenge to forge a similarly close relationship with the new Labor prime minister, Anthony Albanese. Albanese has not made his views on the Tory leadership frontrunner known, but party colleagues are outspoken. In January, former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating described Truss’s remarks about possible Chinese activity in the Pacific as “insane”.
“The Old Imperialism”
It is certainly true that Truce has pulled no punches when it comes to China. On the campaign trail, she repeatedly attacked her opponent Rishi Sunak’s willingness to hold talks with Beijing, and even suggested the UK should arm Taiwan against China. The Foreign Secretary has promised to update the UK’s comprehensive review of security, defense and foreign policy for 2021, with a renewed focus on China and Russia, and to build stronger economic and trade links with Commonwealth nations to tackle the “increasing malign influence of Beijing”. China’s foreign ministry is making little effort to hide its feelings about Tras’s remarks. “This fully exposes the hypocritical faces of the old British imperialism,” said ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin. “Imagine Scotland colluding with foreign powers to secede from the UK Can the UK keep the peace?” “It seems that the UK has been colonized by the US,” Wang Yiwei, a leading international relations academic at Renmin University in Beijing, told the Global Times.
“Bloodthirsty” woman
And for Russia, Truss’s rhetoric was harsh, and in early February she took her message directly to Moscow. Her hawkish stance made her the target of vitriolic attacks from senior members of the Russian government. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry, described it as “bloodthirsty and extremely destructive”. Of particular delight to the Kremlin was a geographic error apparently made by Truss during that trip in response to a pointed question from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, which was promptly leaked to Russian journalists. At the end of her visit, Lavrov said their conversation turned out to be “between the dumb and the deaf.” In April, Russia banned Truss, along with other members of the UK government, from entering the country. Igor Pshenichnikov, an expert at the state-funded Russian Institute for Strategic Studies in Moscow, called Truss a “Russophobe” who “stems solely from the understanding that Russia must be destroyed.” Tras’ unwavering support for Ukraine won her praise in Kyiv Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images
Wartime leader
But the Truce’s unwavering support for Ukraine has won it praise in Kyiv, elsewhere in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, where concern about a Soviet invasion remains paramount. Here, diplomats are confident he will continue Johnson’s policy of close defense cooperation. “Her leadership in resisting Russian aggression towards Ukraine is something we really like,” said one Baltic diplomat. “Overall the UK has stood out as a great leader in terms of supporting Ukraine… It has been known as a leader in this respect.” Brexit and war aside, an EU diplomat noted with admiration that her ambition to become prime minister was already evident a year ago and praised her willingness to indulge in an old-fashioned British gin and tonic.
Freedom Network
Truss’ focus on the Indo-Pacific during her tenure at the State Department has won her friends there, too. He defied naysayers by striking the first post-Brexit free trade deal with Japan, a government that has prioritized its ministerial commitments. Indeed, Tras’s top foreign policy thrust has been the creation of what he calls a “freedom network,” consisting of “free…
