TRADE minister Penny Mordaunt has revealed that the UK is poised to sign a series of eight trade deals that will give the UK businesses access to 20% of the US economy.

In a wide-ranging interview with GB News today, she also said that the UK will be a key player in re-building Ukraine, where damage caused by the war has so far estimated to be £60 billion.

On trade deals, Ms Mordaunt also said the UK is about to sign eight initial agreements with the USA which represent 20% of the US economy.

She said: “In the US we are talking to 20 states currently, that’s going to be a growing number.

“The first eight deals we’re going to sign represent about 20% of the US economy.

“This is big stuff – it will reduce costs for business, it will open up new opportunities for UK businesses and make it easier for them to actually provide services and goods to the US.

“We’re also creating some very interesting partnerships, pairing up particular states or large cities with parts of the UK which again will forge some really interesting partnerships and opportunities.”

She made her comments during an interview on Alastair Stewart & Friends on GB News.

Ms Mordaunt also revealed that, as a senior Royal Navy reservist, she was involved in training Ukrainian military personnel.

“As a nation, we have been training Ukrainian armed forces for years,” she said. “I was involved in that operation in 2015, actually, as minister for the armed forces, and we have been working alongside them, teaching them how to defuse bombs, medical skills, but also how to use the types of equipment that they’re they’re using at the moment.

“But what people don’t know is that in addition to that, we’ve also been training up their civil servants as well.

“A lot of the Civil Defence that you’ll see after terrible bombing people going in helping save lives, put the water supplies back up, all of those things, and all of the civil service support that’s needed for that we have been helping train them do that as well.”

She said that Russian president Vladimir Putin must fail and cannot hold on to any territory gained through military aggression.

“The bottom line is Putin has to fail. Putin cannot hold on to any square inch of territory that he has gone into and he cannot consolidate territory that was in dispute before this particular war started.

“He has to fail. Nato and our partners have to ensure that happens, the red lines that Nato has put in place and not just put in place but said that they’ve put in place, I think, are to send some very clear messages back to Moscow.

“I don’t think they would have done that you don’t remove the prospect of armed forces. You don’t take that off the table unless there’s a very good reason for doing so.

“I know this looks a bit peculiar and people get very frustrated because they want us to go and sort these Russians out. They want Putin to fail, but this has been done in a very cautious and phased way for very good reasons.”

Ms Mordaunt also told Alastair Stewart that the UK will play a key role in rebuilding Ukraine after the war.

“We estimate right now there’s about £60 billion worth of damage done to cities across Ukraine.

“We want to ensure that they can be rebuilt as soon as possible. We will be a key player in doing that.

“And I think we’ll be a convener for other nations contributing to that as well. Russia should be footing the bill for some of this in my opinion and we’ll be looking at ways to do that.

“In the meantime, we need to ensure that we can keep, in parts of Ukraine that aren’t in the direct line of fire. we can keep businesses and people going as normal.”

Asked during the interview about the Government’s new immigration policy, which could see some illegal migrants being sent to Rwanda, she said it is already having a deterrent effect.

“We will soon see if it’s starting to work. There is some indication already that it may be having a deterrent effect,” she said.

“That’s what is going to matter about this set of policies when you announce something that’s really quite groundbreaking.

“You are going to get a lot of criticism and a lot of scepticism, but we will see if this is going to start to work.

“And no doubt the people traffickers will start to adapt their business model to try and circumvent this and we will adapt as well, but not xenophobia, reasonable criticism of what the policy may or may not achieve.”

Asked about reports about allegations of sexual conduct that have been levelled at five Government ministers, she said: “These particular allegations are extremely serious and shocking, but there is we’ve seen elsewhere in the press today, there is misogyny out there as there is in every walk of life and I’m glad to see that people are calling that out, including the prime minister today.”