Image copyright ReutersThe UK will be a standard-bearer for free trade when it leaves the European Union, Liam Fox says.
The International Trade Secretary said Brexit was a "golden opportunity" and that it was "100% wrong" to say the vote was a sign of Britain looking inwards.
The UK is unable to negotiate trade deals independently while in the EU.
Mr Fox will be negotiating new arrangements with other countries after Brexit and has already had some talks.
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In a speech in Manchester, he said free trade had "transformed the world for the better", and that the UK had "a golden opportunity to forge a new role for ourselves in the world".
He predicted the UK would "carry the standard of free and open trade as a badge of honour" once it leaves the EU.
And he defended his recent comments that Britain was "too lazy and too fat" with businessmen preferring "golf on a Friday afternoon" to trying to boost the country"s prosperity.
"What I said was as a country we have been too willing to rest upon the achievements of previous generations," he said.
"I think the figures speak for themselves."
The former GP added: "When I was a doctor my job was not to tell people what they wanted to hear, it was to tell people what they needed to hear in order to put things right."
EU "imploding"
In an earlier interview with the Spectator magazine, Mr Fox – one of the leading campaigners for a referendum Leave vote – said the "architecture" of the EU was "beginning to peel away".
"It"s going to sacrifice at least one generation of young Europeans on the altar of the single currency, and you can only rip out the social fabric from so much of Europe before it starts imploding," he said.
With the UK leaving, he said, "Germany has the potential to become the greatest ATM in global history".
He also said getting a "good future model" was more important than a speedy Brexit, but predicted the UK would have left the before the next general election.
Analysis by the BBC"s James Landale
Liam Fox is aiming high. The international trade secretary told an audience of business leaders in Manchester that when Britain leaves the EU, he wants it to have a trade environment with European economies that is at least as free as it is now. Anything else, he said, may not harm the politicians and institutions in Brussels, but it would harm the people of Europe.
He also said for the first time that he wanted a post Brexit Britain to be a full independent member of the World Trade Organisation, a clear signal that he does not believe the UK should seek what"s called a soft Brexit involving membership of the EU single market or customs union.
Mr Fox"s argument is that EU leaders won"t want to impose punishing new tariffs on British goods and services for fear of harming their own economy. But hoping for a trade deal with the EU as good as it is now will be seen by some as highly optimistic.
The government has yet to set out its negotiating position, with key issues including the balance between single market access and accepting the free movement of people.
In a BBC interview, Italy"s prime minister said it would be "impossible" for Brexit talks to result in a deal that gives Britons more rights than others outside the EU.
Matteo Renzi warned that leaving the EU would be a "very difficult process" – but the problems could be solved only after the UK began the exit procedure.
Markus Kerber, the head of the influential BDI which represents German industry, said a so-called "hard" Brexit, rather than a "fudge", was the only option and predicted the UK would not secure full access to the EU single market if it wanted to curb migration.
He told BBC Radio 4"s Today programme: "We have a rough idea of what the British government wants to see.
"It wants to have relatively full access to the single market and yet limited on non existing freedom of movement of labour…
"That I think is impossible at the moment, so what we think the British government wants I can tell you straight away is not what the continental Europeans are willing or even able to give, then it will be relatively short negotiations."
Prime Minister Theresa May, who has said she will not formally trigger Brexit this year, is facing calls to clarify the government"s demands from the negotiations.
Former education secretary Nicky Morgan, who campaigned for Remain in the referendum, told Today the PM could give a "broad outline" in her speech to next week"s Tory conference and called for details to be provided "certainly in the next couple of months".
Another Conservative Remain campaigner, ex-chancellor Ken Clarke, told the New Statesman Mrs May was running a "government with no policies" which has no idea how to carry out Britain"s exit from the European Union
"Nobody in the government has the first idea of what they"re going to do next on the Brexit front," he said.
Brexit is a "golden opportunity"
http://latiendadejm.com/blog/brexit-is-a-golden-opportunity/
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