The United States is not keen on pursuing a separate free trade agreement (FTA) deal with Britain if it leaves the European Union, the US trade representative, Michael Froman, claimed on Wednesday in comments almost certainly orchestrated by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office as part of “Project Fear”. The US is Britain’s biggest export market after the EU, buying more than $54 billion (£35 billion) in goods from the UK in 2014. The US is also the biggest foreign direct investor in the UK and similarly the UK is the biggest foreign direct investor in the US. Both countries are long term advocates of free trade at the WTO and it is in their vital interests to maintain open trading arrangements…

Michael Froman is quoted as saying “We’re not particularly in the market for FTAs with individual countries.” Here is a list of 20 US bilateral FTAs taken from his own website:

The FCO is going to have come up with better lines than this nonsense…