When Theresa May went to the White House in January, President Trump said he wanted a quick US-UK trade deal. His focus appears to have switched to the EU

The Trump administration has given its strongest indication yet that Britain is sliding back in the queue to strike a free-trade agreement with America, with the US commerce secretary suggesting that a deal is a low priority.

The upcoming general election and the UK’s need to negotiate a post-Brexit trade agreement with the EU were among several complications that made a deal with the US a low priority, Wilbur Ross said. There were also “bandwidth issues” because Britain had not negotiated a trade deal “in a long, long time”, he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

The Times revealed on Saturday that senior officials from the US, UK and EU believed that Europe had moved ahead of Britain in the queue