Baptism of fire as Truss heads to US amid row over submarine deal

Liz Truss is heading for a furious diplomatic confrontation with France on her first trip abroad as foreign secretary, as anger mounts in Paris over the cancellation of a £48bn nuclear submarine contract.

Truss, whose appointment was one of the biggest surprises of Boris Johnson’s cabinet reshuffle last Wednesday, will arrive in the US today before a four day visit to New York and Washington during which she is aiming to promote the prime minister’s vision of “global Britain” to international leaders.

But on Tuesday, when she convenes a meeting of the permanent five members of the UN security council – the UK, US, France, China and Russia – Truss will come face to face with her French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, who has described the way France has been treated by the UK, US and Australia over a new tripartite security pact, and the cancellation of the submarine deal, as a “stab in the back” for his country.

It is believed that the French president, Emmanuel Macron, had never intended to attend in person but will address the assembly remotely.

The French are furious at Australia’s decision to cancel a A$90bn (£48bn) contract it signed with the French company Naval Group in 2016 for a fleet of 12 state-of-the-art attack class submarines.

That deal became bogged down in cost overruns, delays and design changes. The new deal will see Canberra acquire nuclear-powered submarines built by the US and the UK, instead of those from France.

French newspaper La Tribune described the Australia-US-UK pact as a “majestic slap in the face” for all those in France “who still want to believe that Joe Biden will be a different president to Donald Trump in matters of foreign policy”.

‘I look forward to convening global leaders to tackle the major issues of the day and projecting a global Britain’

Liz Truss, foreign secretary

The French are incensed at not being told by any of the countries involved that the submarine deal was being cancelled and that the new pact was coming into being.

Macron learned of the deal in a letter sent by Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, to the Élysée just hours before Morrison gave a press conference announcing the Australian-US-UK pact, known as Aukus. Effectively, Paris was faced with a fait accompli. Diplomatic sources in France say if the Australians were so unhappy with the contract as it stood, what would have been the normal, expected behaviour would have been for them to have expressed their concerns to Paris.

Truss risks finding herself plunged into one of the most bitter and potentially far-reaching diplomatic spats with France in recent memory when she is less than a week into her new role, and as she tries to promote a new, less European-focused foreign policy to the world.

Speaking last night before the trip, Truss sounded upbeat about forg- ing ever-stronger ties with the US in the post-Brexit era. “I’m delighted my first international visit as foreign secretary is to the United States – the UK’s closest and most important partner. At the UN general assembly, I look forward to convening global leaders to tackle the major issues of the day and projecting a positive, outward-looking global Britain that delivers for people across the United Kingdom.”

Johnson will also travel to the UN meeting and make a speech urging greater progress on climate change before the Cop26 meeting in Glasgow later this year. But there are now fears the argument with the French will overshadow his efforts to bang heads together. Above and beyond the tearing up of the contract, Paris feels the decision of the US and the UK to sideline France, a key Nato ally, gravely damages its relationship with the organisation. Analysts warned France could now “pull the shutters down” on Nato and become inflexible in its relations with the UK.

While the Élysée has made no public comment on the international row, Macron’s decision to recall its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra is a historic low in diplomatic relations between the countries after what Paris has described as a betrayal and humiliation of a European partner. It is still unclear when the Australians made the decision that the dozen diesel submarines they had ordered from the French in 2016 would be obsolete by the time they were ready in the late 2030s or 2040s. But by the time Biden took office they had made the decision to ask the US for the nuclear propulsion technology Washington had only ever shared with the UK.