THERESA May has brushed aside claims that the UK is losing global influence because of Brexit, insisting it will continue to be "bold" and not “timid” on the world stage.
Speaking at the G20 summit in Hamburg, the Prime Minister dismissed suggestions that the uncertainty caused by Britain's withdrawal from the EU was hobbling its role in the world and she rejected the view of William Hague, the former foreign secretary, who claimed the country would lose influence on the global stage after leaving the EU.
"What I see as I talk to leaders around the world is engaging with and working with the UK - new friends and old allies alike - as we leave the EU.
"There are no prizes for guessing that the election result did not come out as I hoped it would.
"There are two ways the government can react to that. We either be very timid and sit back or we can be bold and that is what we are going to be. We are going to bold because the UK is facing challenges that we need to address," declared Mrs May.
Today, the PM will have a face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump and will challenge him over his withdrawal of America from the Paris climate change accord.
She stressed that she hoped the President would listen to the G20's "collective message" on the issue.
"I was clear to President Trump how disappointed the UK was that the United States had decided to pull out of the Paris Agreement and also clear that I hope that they will be able to find a way to come back in to the Paris Agreement; that's important for us globally."
Mrs May said she believed it was possible to persuade the US President to bring his country back into the agreement. “I want the US looking at ways to rejoin it,” she said.
On Friday, the PM held a number of bilaterals with world leaders.
In a 30-minute meeting on the margins of the G20 with China’s President Xi Jinping, she urged Beijing to stop flooding the market with cheap steel imports, calling for "more activity" to reduce over-capacity; the UK's steel industry has been devastated by a wave of cheap Chinese steel.
But Mr Xi insisted all countries had to stop overproducing steel and called for "concerted action" to deal with overproduction.
In what a UK Government official described as a "very constructive" meeting, the Chinese premier hailed the "golden era" of relations between China and the UK and said an increase in investment from his nation since the Brexit vote showed its confidence in Britain.
Mrs May also called on the president to use China's influence to put "pressure" on Pyongyang to stop its missile testing programme following North Korea's latest launch.
In another meeting, the PM discussed the international migration crisis with Paolo Gentiloni, her Italian counterpart, and agreed to send a team of Whitehall officials to offer expertise in processing papers to enable migrants to be returned to their home countries.
Also at the summit, Mrs May told leaders that there must be no "safe spaces" for terrorist funding in the global financial system, pledging action to track small sums of money used to finance "lone wolf" attacks.
She explained that the continuing terror threat needed to be tackled "from every angle", including working will allies in the Gulf, such as Saudi Arabia, which has been accused of supporting extremist groups in the UK; claims it denies.
"What I am doing here at the G20 is raising the need for us to work collectively and internationally to deal with terrorist finance not just on the large sums of money that funding terrorism but also to find ways to work with financial services and banks to identify small-scale transactions that can sometimes lead to terrorist activity," said Mrs May.
Today, she is also due to have talks with India’s premier Narendra Modi to discuss trade and with Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss counter-terrorism.
Last night, the leaders were joined by their spouses for a social dinner and a concert at the Elbphilharmonie, where they heard Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the EU's official anthem, which includes words from the Ode to Joy.
The G20 summit was Philip May’s first official visit abroad. The 59-year-old joined other spouses for a sightseeing trip of Hamburg.
Among those who joined him for a riverboat cruise were French President Emmanuel Macron's wife, Brigitte, and the wife of Canadian premier Justin Trudeau’s wife, Sophie.
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