Nathan Guy: Meat Industry Association Chair on the impact of Donald Trump's import tariffs on the NZ meat sector

The meat sector is bracing for the impact of a Donald Trump presidency. 

The President-Elect has campaigned on tariffs of up to 20% on all imports, with higher tariffs for imports from China. 

The US is our largest market for red meat. 

Meat Industry Association Chair Nathan Guy told Ryan Bridge the tariff plan will hit the sector pretty hard. 

He says it will hit US consumers even harder as they'll have to pay more for the red meat and burger patties we produce. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So yesterday we heard from the former Prime Minister John Kee.
Have a listen.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
There is some downsides for New Zealand. I'm not trying
to sugarcoat that, and they do concern me because we
need trade. But I think it won't all be the
won't all be negative. It won't will be one way traffic.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
The downsides. He's talking about Trump's tariffs and we have
a number for you now from since partners could cost
our economy one point seven billion dollars every year. Nathan
Guy is with the Meat Industry Association. He's the chair.
He's currently up in Shanghai having meetings and attending an expo,
an export expo. Great to have you on the show, Nathan.

(00:38):
We had John Key on the shows today. You would
have heard he said, not sugar coating this. Tariffs will
be terrible for us. Do you agree this is a
big problem?

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Oh, well, potentially. We just don't know at the moment. Ryan.
We all like certainty, but on the back of the
new Trump administration, I guess we're all a bit concerned.
But we're just going to have to breathe through it
over the next couple of months and see what happened
and hell of a lot of speculation. No one quite knows,
but certainly if there is a tariff of ten or
twenty percent, it will impact the primary sector pretty hard.

(01:08):
But ultimately it's going to hurt the US consumers even
harder because they're going to have to pay more for
the likes of red meat or burger patties that we produce.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Do you think because we produce food, we might be
in a better position because Trump might not want to
increase tariffs and therefore prices on food items.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
I'm hoping that because of our reputation that we can
keep our head down and hopefully miss a massive tariff implication.
I'm also mindful of the fact that they've had a
massive drought over there and the beef herd has been decimated.
It's going to take a couple of years to rebuild.
We're already seeing early indications are very strong pricing for

(01:51):
New Zealand grinding meat into the US. So if they
don't get it from US, they're going to have to
get it from somewhere else. I reckon our reputation is
going to be paramount up there, and it is. Our
reputation is really good. So here's hoping fingers and toes
cross that we can sneak through.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Our diplomats have got a big job in Washington, DC.
Is that would the top priority be some kind of
exemption like the Aussie's got with aluminium and steel.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
That would be fantastic. Our ambassador up their banks has
got very close links to the Republican Party as I
understand it. Meat companies in New Zealand have got strong
links with customers through to the Republicans as well, So
I guess we'll try all of those different communication channels.
The relationship strong, so hopefully we can avoid it.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
We're better off with banks than we would be with
Kevin Rudd by the sounds of it.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah, I won't go there.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Hey, the estimated cost potential costs since partners reckons could
be one point seven six billion dollars to our exporters.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
We're about eight billion of exports up in the US,
nearly three billion of red meat. It's very big market
for US. I don't know if it will be that much.
Once again, you know a lot of speculation. I think
we've just got to have cool heads, just work through it,
play the relationship card, honest brokers, and just see what happens.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Try and get as much into China, I suppose as
we can, which is why you're there. How fierst is competition.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Up here right now, very face, we had a very
successful FDA, We were the first, had the first move advantage.
There's forty two countries now that have got similar access
to what we've got. So we're pushing hard on our
Taste Pure Nature initiative, which is really selling our attributes
of grass fed high and nutrition and animals outdoors, all

(03:44):
of those fantastic things that our farmers do back in
enz world leading food safety standards, and there is a
few green shoots up here at the moment. We're seeing
that consumer spenders starting to tick up, so we're optimistic
that we can sell more into this market, but it's
still going to be a few headwinds.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Nathan, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Cheers, Ryan, thank you.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Listen live to news Talks it'd be from five am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.