BORIS Johnson says he will tell Amazon boss Jeff Bezos the online giant must pay its fair share of taxes in the UK and address working standards for employees.
The Prime Minister will also hold talks with Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro, a climate change sceptic, during the United Nations General Assembly in New York today.
New Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was travelling to the US with Johnson, amid a deepening diplomatic row with France over the new military pact between the UK, US and Australia.
Later today, the Prime Minister will sit down with Bezos, one of the world’s richest men, amid widespread concerns over the comparative lack of tax that digital giants pay.
Amazon sales in the UK soared by 51% to almost £20 billion last year, buoyed by coronavirus lockdown restrictions.
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Despite the boom, estimates have put Amazon as having a tax-to-turnover ratio of just 0.37%.
Asked if he would challenge Bezos on Amazon paying a fair share of taxes in the UK and to improve workers rights, Johnson responded: “Yes, certainly.”
“But I will also be congratulating him on his massive forestry initiative. He’s putting a huge amount into planting trees around the world,” he told reporters on the RAF Voyager while travelling to New York.
Cop26 President Alok Sharma was also heading to New York with Johnson on Sunday, after saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping still has not committed to attending the climate conference in Glasgow in November.
The climate crisis will also be on the schedule during talks between the Prime Minister and Bolsonaro, the right-wing populist who is vying for re-election in Brazil.
Bolsonaro has been the subject of international criticism for his moves to roll back legal protection for the Amazon rainforest, accelerating deforestation.
Complicating his attendance at the UN, Bolsonaro may be breaching the assembly’s rule for all attendees to have been vaccinated against coronavirus.
The president has told supporters he has refused vaccination and has spread bizarre disinformation about jags, including suggesting they could turn people into crocodiles.
Ahead of the meeting, the Prime Minister said: “In coming together to agree the 100 billion dollar pledge, the world’s richest countries made an historic commitment to the world’s poorest, we now owe it to them to deliver on that.
“Richer nations have reaped the benefits of untrammelled pollution for generations, often at the expense of developing countries.
“As those countries now try to grow their economies in a clean, green and sustainable way we have a duty to support them in doing so, with our technology, with our expertise and with the money we have promised.”
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Tomorrow, the Prime Minister and Truss will meet US President Joe Biden at the White House.
Johnson will push for a restoration of UK-US travel, with Biden’s administration having maintained a ban due to soaring rates of the Delta variant of coronavirus.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “We established this travel working group at the G7 and you can expect them to discuss the work done by that group and the shared need to open up UK-US travel as soon as possible.”
Fallout from the new Aukus military pact between the UK, US and Australia, will also be under discussion.
Not only has it angered China, but France has recalled ambassadors to the US and Australia because the deal to provide nuclear submarines to Canberra meant the cancellation of a £30 billion deal for the French.
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