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John Weekes: Senior Business Journalist on what Trump's tariff increase means for NZ · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: News Talks edb Inn in studio is New Zealand Herald's
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  Speaker 2: Business senior journalist John weekskad I, John.
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  Speaker 3: Good day guys.
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  Speaker 4: Now, finally we have a tariff announcement up from the
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  Speaker 4: original ten percent to fifteen percent. What reaction has there
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  Speaker 4: been so far, John, in the last half hour since
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  Speaker 4: that happened.
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  Speaker 3: Well, most probably a fair amount of disappointment, particularly from exporters.
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  Speaker 3: So if you're trying to export wine or beef or
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  Speaker 3: lamb to the United States, you might have some concerns.
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  Speaker 3: The good news for beef exporters is that the USA
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  Speaker 3: actually has a much smaller herd of cattle beasts than
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  Speaker 3: it had in the not so distant past, so they
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  Speaker 3: can't just manufacture a whole lot of beef to replace
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  Speaker 3: New Zealand exports. I spoke to Darren Gibbs, Westpac senior economist,
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  Speaker 3: and he said, actually, despite that ten percent that we'd
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  Speaker 3: been hearing about a lot, Trump had been indicating that
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  Speaker 3: fifteen percent was more likely. It's the thing that Trump
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  Speaker 3: calls a reciprocal tariff. But it's actually an interesting use
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  Speaker 3: of language because we don't impose tariffs in the United States,
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  Speaker 3: but the Trump administration has assessed the value of non
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  Speaker 3: tariff barriers as being that amount, and so some countries,
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  Speaker 3: he says, some countries manipulate the currency or dump a
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  Speaker 3: lot of goods, so they may as well be comprising tariffs.
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  Speaker 4: And therefore what crimes are weak committed to be fifteen
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  Speaker 4: percent because as Australia looks like they got away with
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  Speaker 4: ten percent.
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  Speaker 3: Australia got ten, the Falkland Islands got ten, where some
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  Speaker 3: people will be scratching their heads about. I asked Gibbs
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  Speaker 3: similar question. You know, what what have we done to
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  Speaker 3: deserve this, you might say, and he said, the reality
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  Speaker 3: is Australia and the United Kingdom are being rewarded for
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  Speaker 3: their very close political and military ties worth the US.
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  Speaker 4: We just opened an FBI based buddy, Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, maybe Trump decided fifteen percent before hearing about
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  Speaker 3: the new FBI and bays Gibbs he sort of equipped that,
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  Speaker 3: you know, if we let the US nuclear powered ships
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  Speaker 3: into harbor as we might get ten. But basically he's
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  Speaker 3: saying that the close strategic partnership with Australia and the
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  Speaker 3: United Kingdom is why they're getting a ten percent baseline tariff.
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  Speaker 3: But I mean you can't just look at that number
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  Speaker 3: because Brazil, I believe had ten percent, but they are
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  Speaker 3: likely to get stung on a lot of specific products
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  Speaker 3: that they exports. So the President of the United States
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  Speaker 3: still might choose to impose heavy tariffs on I and
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  Speaker 3: steal other commodity exports.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, rightly combative with the US as well as Brazil.
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  Speaker 4: But there you go. Fifteen is what it is. Just
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  Speaker 4: get on with it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, John, thank you very much, as always, have
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  Speaker 2: a nice week. He will catch you again soon. That
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  Speaker 2: is John Weeks, senior business journalist for The Herald.
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