Boris Johnson makes first visit to US as foreign secretary with United Nations meetings

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson will make his first official visit to the US in his new role on Friday (22 July 2016), just days after receiving a baptism of fire from American media in London during a joint-press conference with John Kerry.

The former Mayor of London will take part in meetings at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York, where he will stress that the UK will be "more outward-looking, more engaged and more active on the world stage than ever before".

Johnson, who is also expected to meet business-leaders during the trip, refused to apologise to reporters for his alleged "outright lies" on Tuesday.

The chief Vote Leave campaigner was grilled for claiming US President Barack Obama had an "inherent dislike" of the UK because of his "part-Kenyan" heritage. Johnson had also compared Hilary Clinton, the Democratic Party's nominee for the White House, with a "sadistic nurse".

"We can spend an awfully long time going over lots of stuff that I've written over the last 30 years," Johnson said during questioning. He added: "I'm afraid there is such a rich thesaurus of things I've said that have been, one way or another, through what alchemy I do not know, somehow misconstrued."

Johnson had attacked Obama after the outgoing president warned that the UK would be "at the back of the queue" for a trade deal with the US if Britain voted to split from the EU. But Kerry suggested informal trade talks between countries could begin before the UK breaks away from Brussels.

Brexit Secretary David Davis has said the government would not trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty until 2017. The mechanism will officially signal the UK's intention to exit the EU and is expected to start two years' worth of negotiations.