Government responds to Trump tariff hike as Labour accuses it of ‘major fail’
Labour pointed the finger at the coalition, with trade spokesman Damien O’Connor saying the episode was “a major fail for the Government and for our relationship with the US”.
“Christopher Luxon has failed to secure a low tariff rate for our exports, while others around the world, such as the EU and UK, have managed to make a deal,” he said.
“Businesses will have to decide whether to pass the costs on to American customers, or weather those themselves. They may have to explore new markets. None of these options are good for business confidence here at home.”
Despite Winston’s constant bowing to America and after all the claims of being a great deal maker by Luxon, both have failed to protect NZ from Trump’s 15% tariff!
This is an embarrassing failure by the Government and McClay’s decision to not even bother to try and negotiate with America is weird…
He defended his decision not to explicitly enter negotiations with the US to lower the proposed tariff after it was announced in April. McClay said he engaged with his US counterpart on a trip to South Korea, where he was told of the limited US “bandwidth” to conduct negotiations with several countries.
…why didn’t the Government roll out Luxon or Winston to try and negotiate a lower rate?
This is supposed to be the area of expertise!
This will hurt NZ at a time when our economic growth is already anaemic.
Free Trade is dead, hyper-regional is here.
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Useless as this government is, this one really isn’t their fault. Trump is as mad as a cut snake, and no country is doing much better.
Thankfully the US is not by any means our most important market – no thanks to these clowns, half of whom got their lunatic far-right policies straight from there.
And this government is full of venal idiots, and only idiots believe that Trump will negotiate rationally or in good faith.
Trump is the perfect reflection of the US national character.
And McClay was on RNZ saying exporters had budgeted for a 10% increase in costs…
That’s not how it works, the American consumer pays 10% more for NZ imports.
Our Trade Minister ladies and gentlemen.
What a genius.
But he only got the job as his Daddy was a Nat. And his Daddy stole from World Vision, Keep NZ Beautiful AND the public.
Looks like the entire family are crooked idiots.
We all know dealing with USA under Trump is not one that can be done with ease .His reign is one of a bully with little reason behind it .No country can operate with certainty so forvthe next 3 years we will have to bare with whatever he comes up .
with..We have had the rug pulled out before and survived and I am confident we will survive Trump
Duck Season,
Thanks for the FBI base, here’s a 15% tariff.
To use hip-hop terminology, we look like bitches.
…’why didn’t the Government roll out Luxon or Winston to try and negotiate a lower rate?’
Because they would have failed to do so and everyone would see them fail.
If Luxon learned anything as a CEO it is to have underlings to fail for you.
Increase trade with China?
The great pretenders both sat on their backside race baiting and not crushing gangs .In the meantime the orange one said they clearly dont know how to negotiate so slap 15% on .I guess we will have to drop our prices to stay competitive now .Luxon has displayed the art of doing nothing and the end result is Labours fault no doubt .
And true to form up steps Winston with some bull shit about the name of the country .He thinks we should just flick our heritage and just use the name given by a passing tourist who never even set foot on land just sailed away again .Once again race baiting to cover another failure of the COCs.
I don’t understand why the Government didn’t try to engineer a trade deficit with America. Tell the farmers to hold off for a bit, slow down the exporting, hold tight for a few months to manufacture a deficit. Trump clearly just looked at a list of countries with a surplus/deficit and hit the tariffs like that.
Luxon has spent most of his overseas trips targeting Asia, why did they not put lore effort into Washington? I’d like to know how often Todd McClay visited America or lobbied them.
It certainly makes Peters, Luxon and McClay look incredibly stupid and useless.
To partially quote Damien O’connor, what an epic fail.
Out of all this I think it’s time NZers learnt that we cannot trust a National government or a National MP and additionally we cannot trust America and Trump.
Trump is well known as being a Convicted Felon and a Trickster plus a prolific Liar(like Luxon).
What I dread to imagine if Weakling Luxon invites the Convicted Felon on a tour of NZ at NZ taxpayers expense whilst pandering to Shoulder Grabbing Photo Opportunities with Trump.
This government has Failed NZ and NZers time and again. Lets hope they, like ACT and NZ First, get thoroughly thrashed at whenever is the next election.
One thing for sure is perhaps it’s time NZ banned American made products eg the American made whiskeys. We don’t really need anything American made in this country and that would include Luxon.
A picture paints a thousand words .The three of them are saying to themselves ,”what I would say to you is we fucked up big time again”
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