U.K. Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox | Matt Cardy/Getty Images Liam Fox: Britain does not have capacity to strike trade deals now UK trade secretary says Britain wants to adopt terms of existing EU trade agreements on temporary basis.

LONDON — Britain has turned down countries wishing to strike free-trade deals after Brexit because the government does not have the capacity to negotiate them, the U.K.’s International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said.

In an interview with POLITICO, Fox said he had told countries with pre-existing EU trade deals that the U.K. wanted to adopt these agreements in their entirety after Brexit but only on a temporary basis until they can be updated.

“There are a number of countries who said they would like to move directly to a new free-trade agreement but we have said we are simply unable to do that at the moment," Fox said. "It requires the willingness of the country involved to want to move the process further on and it’s dependent on our own capacity in our own department."

Fox said a trade deal with the U.S. was the government’s No. 1 priority after leaving the EU, followed by agreements with Australia and then New Zealand, but admitted it would have to wait until an agreement is struck with Brussels first.

Fox said that requests coming in to strike new deals with the U.K. is a sign of the global appetite for liberalizing trade with Britain.

Countries such as Japan, South Korea and Switzerland may hope to extract more concessions than they are able to from the EU.

However, it could also signify resistance from “third countries” outside the EU to allow the U.K. to simply roll over the same terms and conditions negotiated by the EU, a bloc with almost seven times the number of consumers. Countries such as Japan, South Korea and Switzerland — significant economies with existing trade deals with Brussels — may hope to extract more concessions from the U.K. than they are able to from the EU.

Fox, though, is adamant the future is positive for the U.K., even if new trading relationships take longer for his department to negotiate than first imagined.

“The EU has got some 40 free-trade agreements with third countries,” Fox said. “We have always said that our aim is twofold — first of all, to provide continuity as we leave the EU but then to move to more bespoke and more liberal agreements when we are able to do so."

Waiting for Brexit

Fox said the U.K. was “already moving” with the United States and was pushing Brussels to tie up its deal with Japan — agreed in principle in July — before Britain leaves in March 2019. “Australia and New Zealand [are] our next highest priorities because they are very keen to establish open markets and they are more like us in terms of the markets that they are,” Fox said. “Then we’ll have to look at the EU agreements and see how we can update them.”

The U.K. and the U.S. have set up a trade working group to lay the groundwork for an agreement which could be signed soon after Britain's exit in March 2019.

On the U.S. trade deal, Fox explained why it would have to wait: “We can’t make commitments until we see the shape of the EU deal because we don’t want to move faster in one agreement than another, or to make agreements which might tie our hands in another.”

Countries such as Japan also caution that it is impossible to determine what a deal with the U.K. would look like until the Brexit deal is done and Britain’s future access to the EU market is clear.

"Businesses will increasingly make their voices heard. We would all be wise to listen to those" — Liam Fox

Fox was adamant that an agreement with the European Union on the terms of the divorce and future relationship would be struck and would form the basis of Britain’s global trading system.

But he claimed there were politicians in Brussels who were prepared to scupper the prospects of a deal to protect the European project: “What they are thinking about is how can we increase political integration at whatever economic cost. For me it’s just unthinkable that you wouldn’t have as an essential pillar in your thinking, making your people more prosperous. It’s ever closer union.”

Fox warned that trade barriers with the U.K. would damage both sides and ultimately endanger the EU: “The success of the European project is ultimately whether it delivers prosperity for its people."

“You’ve got this tension between European businesses who want to get on and the political overlords who have this almost theological attachment to ever-closer union. Businesses will increasingly make their voices heard. We would all be wise to listen to those,” Fox said.