A trade deal between Britain and the United States is unlikely to be reached in the next few years, Prime Minister Liz Truss admitted, Politico reports.

"There [aren’t] currently any negotiations taking place with the U.S. and I don’t have an expectation that those are going to start in the short to medium term." She said her “number one issue” for discussion with U.S. President Joe Biden was “global security and making sure that we are able to collectively deal with Russian aggression.”

A U.S.-UK trade deal was once vaunted by politicians in London as a prize after Brexit, but now it looks a very distant prospect as the Biden administration is unwilling to act before the next presidential election, if at all.

The British government has long lived up to expectations on this front, but Truss's comments have been the most frank admission that such an agreement is beyond their reach.

Britain does not want the deal proposal to be the "sword of Damocles" hanging over the Northern Ireland protocol negotiations, which the U.S. could refuse if Washington objects to the British position.