UK government set to miss 2022 target on global trade deals

Britain’s government is poised to miss its target to seal deals covering 80 per cent of its trade with the rest of the world by the end of 2022.

The promise — set out in the Conservative manifesto ahead of the 2019 general election — reflected ambitions that post-Brexit Britain would be free to strike trade agreements all over the world.

But instead the UK has so far only made deals covering just over 60 per cent of its global…