Barry Soper: Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent on Donald Trump's newly imposed tariffs

Donald Trump has finally unveiled his sweeping tariff plan - and many countries have been caught up in it.

The US President's announced 10 percent tariffs on almost all imports to the US.

They're much higher for some countries and products - including 25 percent on vehicles, 34 percent on China, and nearly 50 percent on some other countries.

Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper says Trump's focused on protecting the US from "unrelenting economic warfare" - but it's unclear what that could do to global relations.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Very sober, senior political correspondent with US. Very good evening,
good evening afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
When I was looking dark.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Now it doesn't it because it's a terrible day, terrible
whether it really does feel like things are. And of
course the storm clouds are gathering on the trade front too.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Absolutely. Do you know I was thinking today, Ryan about
trade and where the world's come from. Now. I remember,
before your time. It was in nineteen ninety four I
went to Bogor in Indonesia. Your older listeners will remember it,
and the APEC leaders they signed up to what they
said were common goals of free and open trade and

(00:38):
investment by twenty and ten for industrialized countries in twenty
twenty for developing economies. You won't remember this, but I
said on radio at the time, it'll never happen. It
can't happen because most of the leaders, while all of
them but one would be gone by the time any

(00:58):
of these dates were realized. And the one who would
be less left was the Sultan of Brunei, And from
my knowledge, I think he's still there, but the rest
of them have gone. Bill Clinton was in office for
the US. Jim Bolger, we were traveling with him and
Paul Keating from Australia who once called me a maggot

(01:19):
and told his mind is to get me away from him.
But well, it was a blowfly fly actually it wasn't
a magot, and you know it attracts blowflies. As I
commented after he made the remark. But when you look
at the ten percent tariff now it's not as high
as some with feeling, but that's not a good thing,
because a tariff is a tariff. And I can't understand

(01:41):
why Donald Trump would ever think that by imposing tariff's unilaterally,
that it's going to make America a richer country. That
may happen over decades, but it's not going to happen overnight.
All the cars now are made outside to co and

(02:01):
Canada make the cars for America. They do assemble them
in America, but they'll all go up because of the
steel and what have you. It's it's just incredible, and
that I know. All the boffins and the bee Hive
were gathered around today to watch Trump make this announcement
and they couldn't understand the figure that he used that

(02:21):
New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
On there people have been trying to unpick that number
all day Berry, we'll give it a go with Tom
McLay after five. But interesting, yeah, he says, it was
interesting listening to him talk about war. I mean, he says,
we need to be strong and we need to have
the manufacturing base should we be at war.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
You know, So what does that tell you about his
psyche well, and about America, that if there was a war,
America would be well, it would be anyway.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
But isn't that sort of But I was thinking, isn't
that sort of what we want them to be thinking,
like because like it or though that China is coming right,
So if they're not thinking about how they might be
on a war footing, then who is I hope we're.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Not thinking about war?

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Well, I mean I hope we're not.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
I lived through the Cold War and it was fantastic that.
I don't think anybody's failed as safe. And I'm a
baby boomer, of course, as as Donald Trump, as is
Winston Peters.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
I mean, you could argue we're in a cold war
right now.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Well you could, yeah, although it's.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Anyway, we're getting a bit off track. Here are the
Treaty's Treaty Principal's Bill is going to be reported back tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Berry, Now you said it all really that Labour's Justice
spokesman Duncan, I know you're going to have him on
here they were, they were screaming about this bill being
wasted time on through the parliamentary process. They all to
a person and the Labor Party said it was a disgrace.
The government was wasting parliamentary time. Yeah, dangerous, it was

(03:51):
creating danger. And here's Duncan web now saying it should
have been extended. We should have been They've they've had
three hundred submissions to this bill, ninety five percent of
them are opposed to it. Can you expect to Select
Committee to sit there day after day after day listening
to the same opposition to the bill? They closed it
off at one hundred and fifty submissions. Now the bill

(04:14):
will be back in parliament tomorrow. Parliament's not sitting, of course,
but it can report a bill back and next week
it's expected people around the beehive that I've talked today,
that it'll be gone by next week. There will be
a vote. The interesting thing to me is how are
you going to see a repeat performance by the Moldi

(04:35):
Party and the Hucker No I'm.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Sure you will. Xy Audrey Young had some good advice
for them. When they do do it, wait till the
vote's finished.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Show everybody that you know it's sacrilegious to interrupt a debate,
right right, Mara Pardi don't know the rules clearly of Parliament.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Speaking of and the Greens, you've got a final note
on these two bearings.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Well, look, I was going to go on like a
crack record about profit today and the Greens thinking came
up again, it came up. But I'm not I'm not
running anything. Don't worry about that. Chloe Swarbrick, Madame and Davidson.
They've been banging on about it for ages now and
now we see Ricardo Mendendez Menendez. Now this is ants.

(05:16):
Our technical producer said, Barry always mispronounces Menendez. Want.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
I never want to interrupt your flow. I yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Well, he today banged on about profit and that's businesses
that run GPS organizations, you know practices. He said, why
should they make a profit? Hello? But anyway, the other
thing was that you know the Maori Party, what will
the Privileges Committee do with them? Well, what they can do?

(05:48):
And I think the Maldi Party painted themselves into a
corner here. I think they've made it very difficult for
the Privileges Committee to be anything but hard on them.
What they can do is they they can have their
pay breached between three hundred and four hundred dollars a day,
depending on their salary. Of course, there is if there's
no appearance with the committee, the suspension, they can be

(06:11):
suspended from Parliament. It's going it'll probably be longer, so
they could be out on the outside looking in. And
it's taken as red that they won't apologize for the
hucker that they made. So the whole Privileges Committee that
White t t called silly or meaningless, I'm sorry he

(06:32):
might find they do have some meaning.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, absolutely, Barry, thank you very much for that. Barry Soper,
Senior political correspondent Here at News Talks EDB. For more
from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to News Talks
dB from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on
iHeartRadio