National knew trade war with China brewing – did nothing and now trade war is here
It feels odd.
The trade war with China has broken out and we still seem to be asleep at the wheel.
Has no one noticed?
Maybe Paul Henry’s arse tattoo really is actually more important than our largest trading partner declaring a trade war on us?
Every day we get denial by the Government that there is any problem, and then after each assurance, new evidence emerges that there really is a huge problem right now.
McClay’s extraordinary new version of events released yesterday is his fourth attempt now to explain what he knew about Chinese threats of a trade war and when.
Our terribly forgetful Trade Minister has previously managed to create 3 versions of whether or not he had been briefed about China threatening trade sanctions for investigating their wonky steel.
His First version was that the claims were ‘extremely hypothetical’ and that there was no hard evidence.
His second version was to announce that after checking with his office, he had in fact been briefed himself last week of such an approach.
His third version was that, oh yeah, we’ve been working on this threat from China for about 2 or months now.
His latest version has been, oh, yeah, looks like we’ve been told explicitly that China would use a range of non-tariff barriers against our biggest exporters since May.
Which is exactly what has just fucking happened to Zespri!!!
HELLO?
The Trade Minister is informed that China will use a range of non-tariff barriers against our exporters if a complaint about their faulty steel is made. Complaint gets laid, and then suddenly one of NZs largest exporters gets a non-tariff barrier slapped on them.
Are all the media in Rio? Is that why no one at home seems to understand the enormity of what’s happening?
Vernon Small’s excellent work on this issue is fast becoming the political journalism of 2016.
At some point, the claims of ‘nothing to see here’ must get challenged.
Who would have thought buying ridiculously cheap steel from China would ever go wrong huh?
when this economy collapses under nationals management the hobits will be saying what the fuck happened
Nothing to see here, folks, move on.
Road crash? What road crash?
Look, the Olympics are on!!
And those Orwellian tumbleweeds still roll on by at the NZ Herald, where the most important political “news” today is wishing Dear Leader happy birthday.
If the Herald was a North Korean newspaper, it couldn’t be doing a better job of sycophantic pro-Government propaganda.