Felicity Roxburgh: International Business Forum director on whether the Government will change Trump's mind about the tariffs

The Prime Minister has claimed it's 'unlikely' that New Zealand will be able to make Trump change his mind about the tariffs - and many experts agree with that sentiment.

Trump recently raised New Zealand's tariff rate to 15 percent, while keeping Australia and the UK at 10 percent.

Trade Minister Todd McClay will head to Washington in the coming weeks to argue our case, but Felicity Roxburgh from the International Business Forum agrees Trump is unlikely to budge.

"We do believe it's still worth making an attempt to go and talk to them. The other thing to remember is that we have supported, more or less, the Government's approach."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
On the trade situation, the Prime Minister reckons it's unlikely
We're going to be able to change Donald Trump's mind
on the higher tariff that he slapped on New Zealand
came in at fifteen percent when Australia got slapped with
ten percent. Felicity Roxburgh is the director of the International
Business Forum and with US. Hey, Felicity, hi there. Do
you agree with the Prime Minister.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Well, we believe that it's worth. We welcome the decision
to go to Washington to press our case, to put
the word that we have a balanced trade profile with
the US and that we've sort of been hopefully inadvertently
caught up in the Trump tariff net.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Do you think there will be able to change Trump's mind.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
It's going to be difficult. I think it's going to
be difficult.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
I mean, listen, let's be honest about it, Felicity. So
we can stop getting our hopes up. Okay, So it's
unlikely happened, even if we did the things that they
would want, right, even if we removed all the tariffs
that we slap on their staff, looked at the biosecurity
regime on US imports, maybe bought some Boeings quicker so
we could kind of you know, change the trade, the
balance of trade, even all of that stuff. They still
wouldn't budge.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Well, it's still we do believe it's still worth making
an attempt to go and talk to them. I mean
what the other thing to remember is that, you know,
but we have supported more or less the government's approach
up until now because it was a lot of downside
risk as well to negotiating. You know, it's very unpredictable

(01:46):
the situation, and if we'd gone there and made a
big noise, then we could have ended up in some
conversations that we didn't want to be in. And also,
you know ten percenters. There's very long queue of the
ten percent club, so we probably were at the end
of it. So, you know, the businesses aspector they understood
and accepted the government's kind of head down ears open.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
The conversations that we might have ended up in that
we didn't want to end up in.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Are they China not necessarily? I mean there's also the
pharmac piece that's been a difficulty for the government. The
US doesn't like our sort of single buyer model. We
do have defensive interests as well.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Okay, Felicity, it's wonderful to talk to you. Thanks for
your expertise. That's Felicity Rocksboro, director of the International Business

Speaker 1 (02:31):
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