Trade Minister Todd McClay says
he’s prioritising certainty on the US tariffs before trying
to negotiate a reduction.
He met with senior officials
in Washington last week to express his
concerns about the 15 percent tariffs imposed on New Zealand
exports.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has said
there’s
no suggestion that US President Donald Trump will budge
on the tariffs on New Zealand exports.
McClay told
Morning Report he wasn’t expecting to get the tariff
rate off as the President had made it clear that any country
with a surplus – albeit modest – would be subject to a 15
percent tariff, or higher.
He said currently, it was
the fluctuating nature of the rate which was more harmful to
exporters than the rate itself.
“The challenge we have
is, it’s gone to 15 percent, will it go down to 10 percent?
Could it go back to 15 percent again?
“We’ve asked for
some certainty of whether there’s a process or not and how
we can work with them to get a bit more of that, so at the
very least our exporters know what they’re getting into and
if they want to put more effort into the US.”
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McClay
said the plan to
purchase five MH-60R Seahawk helicopters and two Airbus
A321XLR aircraft from the United States was announced
while he was in Washington.
He said he pointed that
out, while making the case that trade between the countries
was “actually very balanced”.
For six of the past 10
years, the US has had a “significant trade surplus against
us, in the last four we’ve had a very modest one,” he
said.
“So, that’s registered … the message was,
‘You’re [New Zealand] not in our sights, but we’re sorry
you’re a bit of collateral damage here’.”
McClay said
he’ll continue to meet with his US counterparts over the
coming months to discuss how those trade flows could impact
the rate.
The tariffs were unavoidable and most of the
world was trying to negotiate with the US.
He made it
clear that most of the tariff was being passed on and that
it was “inflationary for US consumers, but it’s starting to
bite”.
“Any further movement is going to harm trade
significantly, and then secondly the see-sawing” was harmful
to New Zealand exporters.
McClay said most countries
had responded to the uncertainty with US trade, by making
efforts to reduce trade barriers elsewhere and give
certainty to exporters.
“I haven’t seen any evidence
yet of others saying, ‘We’ll retaliate against everybody and
put tariff rates up’.
“In our engagement with
countries we trade with, or want to trade more with, … the
conversations are more positive than they were
previously.”
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