President Barack Obama talks during a press conference at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in central London on Friday with Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron. | Getty Obama: Brexit would move U.K. to the 'back of the queue' on U.S. trade deals

President Barack Obama said Friday that the United Kingdom would be "in the back of the queue" for future free trade agreements with the United States if it left the European Union.

"I think it's fair to say that maybe at some point down the line there might be a U.K.-U.S. trade agreement," Obama said in London at a joint news conference with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron. "But it's not going to happen any time soon because our focus is negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done."


Obama used the press conference to lay out a number of arguments why he thought it would be in the economic and national security interest of both the U.K. and the United States for Britons to vote to stay in the EU when they go to the polls on that issue, June 23.

The U.S. president said he specifically wanted to knock down the argument advanced by proponents of the British exit that the U.K. could expect to negotiate a free trade pact with the United States if it decides to leave the 28-nation economic bloc.

"The U.K. is going to be in the back of the queue. Not because we don't have a special relationship, but because given the heavy lift on any trade agreement," Obama continued. That makes it much more efficient for the United States to negotiate with a huge block like the European Union, rather than individual countries, he said.