In July 2016, in the wake of the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union, Fox was appointed the first Secretary of State for International Trade by new Prime Minister Theresa May.

[1] Liam Fox was born and raised in a Roman Catholic family of Irish heritage[2] in East Kilbride, Scotland, and brought up in a council house[3] that his parents later bought.

In 1996, he brokered an accord in Sri Lanka, called the Fox Peace Plan, between Chandrika Kumaratunga's PA and the opposition UNP of Ranil Wickremasinghe, on a bipartisan approach for ending the ethnic war.

[13] In November 2003, Fox was appointed campaign manager for Michael Howard following the no-confidence vote against the Conservative's party leader, Iain Duncan Smith.

[47] The Ministry of Defence (MoD) faced budget cuts of up to 8% over the next five years, according to some analysts, and the department was grappling with a £37 billion shortfall on programmes it has signed up to.

"[48] In September 2010, in a private letter to David Cameron, Fox refused to back any "draconian cuts" in the Armed Forces at a time when Britain was at war.

"[50] In March 2011, Fox defended the decision to make 11,000 redundancies in the armed forces, insisting that personnel who have recently returned from Afghanistan would not be sacked.

"[51] In light of the 2011 Libyan civil war, Fox warned that Libya could end up split in two as Muammar Gaddafi unleashed the full fury of his military arsenal, sending warplanes and ground troops to attack rebel-held positions across the country.

In a leaked letter to the Prime Minister, Fox said he could not accept plans to increase the development budget to 0.7 percent of the gross domestic product.

The aid pledge, made in the Conservative election manifesto last year, was at the heart of Cameron's attempts to change his party's image.

He also warned that high-ranking members of the Armed Forces were facing the sack because the Government wanted to reduce bureaucracy by cutting "the star count".

"[54] On 27 June 2011, Fox announced that Baron Levene had completed his report[55] on the reform of the MoD which suggested that they could cut the number of senior officers and could also lead to ministerial posts being axed.

In terms of equipment, the RAF would lose the Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft programme, the entire Harrier fleet would be scrapped, and bases will be turned over to the Army.

The Army will have its tanks and heavy artillery cut by 40%, and half of the soldiers in Germany will return to the UK by 2015, with the rest brought home by 2030 and housed in former RAF bases.

[62] The Cabinet Secretary's investigation into the incident concluded that Fox's conduct constituted a "clear breach of the Ministerial code" and that his actions posed a "security risk".

[65] In a September 2016 speech on international trade, Fox said there needed to be a change in British business culture, arguing that exporting was a "duty" which companies neglected because "it might be too difficult or too time-consuming or because they can't play golf on a Friday afternoon".

[87] In July 2010, Fox said that an early withdrawal of coalition troops from Afghanistan would risk a return of civil war and act as a "shot in the arm to jihadists" across the world.

In marked contrast to David Cameron, who pledged to withdraw all British troops by 2015, Fox said Britain would be betraying the sacrifices of its fallen soldiers if it left "before the job is finished".

He said that "Were we to leave prematurely, without degrading the insurgency and increasing the capability of the Afghan national security forces, we could see the return of the destructive forces of transnational terror ... Not only would we risk the return of civil war in Afghanistan, creating a security vacuum, but we would also risk the destabilisation of Pakistan with potentially unthinkable regional, and possibly nuclear, consequences.

Fox told MPs that UK forces had made "good progress" in Sangin, but the move would enable Britain to provide "more manpower and greater focus" on Helmand's busy central belt, leaving the north and south to the US.

[89] On 19 July 2010, Fox said that within four years the Afghan army and police should take responsibility for security, leaving British troops to work only as military trainers.

Fox has a particular interest in mental health issues and has criticised Gordon Brown's Labour Government for failing to adequately address the problem.

[103] He was the UK Director and founding member of The Atlantic Bridge, a UK-based charity that aims to preserve and promote the Special Relationship.

[106] Fox was able to retain a good relationship with the administration of George W. Bush, despite a five-year breakdown in relations between the Conservative and Republican parties over the Iraq War.

[114] Fox was critical of Cameron's strategy and performance for that debate, and stated "There was no need to seek parliamentary approval for any military action, as constitutional authority lies with the government.

[119] Fox stated that his decision to remortgage his second home to pay for redecorations and claim the higher interest repayments on his expenses represented value for money because he could have charged the taxpayer for the decorating bills directly.

I entirely accept that, like many others, you could have made other claims if the fees office had rejected your claims for mortgage interest, and that you may well have spent some of what you raised by increasing your mortgage on your constituency home, but the evidence is imprecise, and my terms of reference only allow me to interfere if I find special reasons in your individual case showing that it would not be fair and equitable to require repayment, either at all or at the level recommended.

Fox stated that the high bill was due to regular trips overseas, in his capacity as Shadow Defence Secretary and said he was looking for a cheaper tariff.

[126] On 10 June 2005, he announced his engagement to longtime girlfriend Jesme Baird, a doctor who works at the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation.

[129] In September 2013, Fox launched Rising Tides: Facing the Challenges of a New Era, a 384-page book in which he warns that many of the world’s institutions are ill-equipped to tackle the economic and security threats of the 21st century.