LONDON (AP) – Prime Minister Theresa May says Britain will be a “global champion of free trade,” in a speech acknowledging that the election of Donald Trump and the U.K. vote to leave the European Union mark an era of profound world change.
May is making her first major foreign policy speech Monday at the annual Lord Mayor’s Banquet in London. Extracts were released in advance.
Mays say Britain must not be “standing inflexibly, refusing to change and still fighting the battles of the past, but adapting to the moment, evolving our thinking and seizing the opportunities ahead.”
She says “free markets and tree trade” are the best way to lift people out of poverty. But – in a nod to the anti-establishment feeling that fueled Trump’s victory and the Brexit vote – she adds that governments must help manage “the forces of globalization so that they work for all” and don’t leave some communities behind.
“To be the true global champion of free trade in this new modern world, we also need to do something to help those families and communities who can actually lose out from it,” May says.