“In many ways it would make sense to think of docking initially with some of these existing agreements rather than starting from the beginning to negotiate a set of free trade agreements,” he told the Prosperity UK conference.

“It would make a lot of sense from a UK perspective to have one agreement with the North American countries rather than three agreements [one per country] especially when those countries have one agreement with each other.”

He was joined by Australia’s High Commissioner to the UK Alexander Downer, who said that this idea could be extended to the TPP, which is made up of the Nafta countries plus others around the Pacific, though the US has pulled out.

Since then countries including Japan and Australia have expressed an intention to continue without the US.

“I think the TPP will go ahead, I think Japan’s switch in position is very promising and Prime Minister Abe said he wants the TPP 11 [countries] to go ahead. Could the UK join that? We wouldn't have any objection,” said Mr Downer.

“If you want free trade with us, that is great. How do you achieve that, we are relaxed about that - we wouldn't have any objection in principle to the UK trying to come alongside on the TPP, it is a very high-quality agreement.”