US Republican hopeful Chris Christie meets David Cameron on trade trip

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/02/republican-chris-christie-trade-trip-britain

Version 0 of 1.

Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey and US Republican party leadership hopeful, visited David Cameron on Monday as part of a trip officially designed to promote trade ties between the politician’s state and the United Kingdom.

Christie and his wife Mary Pat attended a meet-and-greet with the British prime minister before going to an official dinner with members of his cabinet. The meeting was considered private, so details of what was discussed were not released.

Though he hasn’t yet announced his intentions to run to be the Republican presidential candidate, Christie’s trip to the UK has been interpreted as an attempt to demonstrate his foreign policy credentials after a career spent in his home state.

The UK is New Jersey’s third largest trade partner after Canada and Mexico. As with his trip to Mexico in September and to Canada in December, Christie’s visit to London is being funded by a nonprofit group called Choose New Jersey, which promotes the state’s business opportunities.

Christie is due to fly home from his three-day trip on Tuesday, after attending a “working lunch” with the chancellor George Osborne.

Christie caused controversy in the US media on Monday when he called for “balance” in the debate over whether measles vaccines are safe. “Mary Pat and I have had our children vaccinated and we think that it’s an important part of being sure we protect their health and the public health,” he said. “I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well, so that’s the balance that the government has to decide.”

On Sunday, Christie donned a red and white striped scarf to watch Arsenal beat Aston Villa 5-0 at the Emirates stadium in north London. When asked by reporters whether it bothered him that nobody in Britain knew who he was, he said, “I don’t think I have to worry about that. I’m not running for anything in the United Kingdom anytime soon.”

The New Jersey governor told reporters that he wasn’t too concerned to be missing the Super Bowl in favour of an English football match because his team the Dallas Cowboys weren’t playing. “Given the two teams that are there today it really doesn’t matter to me one way or another,” he said. “If the Cowboys were at the Super Bowl that would be a different thing.”

After a meeting with the American ambassador Matthew Barzun on Monday, Christie was accompanied by a delegation from New Jersey’s business community on a trip to Cambridge, where they visited some of the city’s many research facilities and life sciences businesses.

Christie, who has been the governor of New Jersey since 2010, also stopped to lay a wreath at the Cambridge American Cemetery, where the remains of 3,812 US servicemen are buried, including the jazz musician Glen Miller and Joseph Kennedy Jr, the eldest brother of former US president, John F Kennedy.