Nathan Guy: Meat Industry Association chair on what Trump's proposed tariffs could mean for the meat industry

It's a waiting game for our meat industry - with US tariffs looming large. 

President Donald Trump has confirmed tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China will begin in the coming hours. 

He's recently claimed agricultural products are next in the firing line for tariffs as early as April. 

Meat Industry Association chair, Nathan Guy, says our industry's ridden the wave of geopolitical uncertainty before.

"We export to about 120 countries around the world and we're very agile and nimble - I guess I'd like to think that our relationship is very strong with the US." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the past few hours. Staying with Trump for just
a second, He's fired off a post on True Social
saying agricultural import terrorists will take effect from April to
second in the United States. This could be a big
problem for US here done under. The US is our
second largest export market for goods, worth nine billion bucks
a year. Red meat exports jump sixty four percent in January,

(00:21):
Darry alone worth more than a billion bucks. Nathan Guy
is the chairman of the Meat Industry Association. Former Minister.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hello, gooda Ryan, how are you good? Thank you?

Speaker 1 (00:31):
These terriffs, How worried are you what he's talking about?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Oh, we're worried. But we just don't know at the moment.
And it's a little bit hard, you know, speculation. Who
might they affect, when might they come in? How much
might they be? I see today he's marching on with China,
Mexico and Canada, and then today's tweet, and I see

(00:55):
that quite a few people have responded in a negative
way to the tweet in the US. So we'll just
wait and.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
See what percentage would be bad or catastrophic, I mean,
tim percent. I imagine we could probably deal with. But
if he goes with twenty five. That's major, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Ah, that's a big number. Yeah, that would be a
big concern. But I was just thinking about it and
reflecting before we came on here. Ryan. I liken the
world meat markets to a bit like a giant waterbed.
You know, there's ripples and waves. There's a push there,
there's a wave over there. And New Zealand there's a

(01:34):
fantastic history of writing ways, whether they're geopolitical, trade barriers,
whatever they might be. We export to about one hundred
and twenty countries around the world, and we're very agile
and nimble, and I guess i'd like to think that
our relationship is very strong with the US, and we've
you know, all of those relationships are going to be

(01:56):
really important in the next week.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
While I mean, the problem is there's a lot of
countries who thought they had close relationships with the US,
and in the last couple of weeks those have been
turned on their head.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yes, yes, have you heard right? Right?

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Have you had any word from or any contact from
the New Zealand government about this so far? I mean,
they're obviously going to be contacting their people in Washington
trying to figure out what the hell's going on? But
have you heard anything?

Speaker 2 (02:23):
No, I haven't. The Prime Minister and senior ministers were
at our National Lamb Day on the lawn at Parliament
a couple of weeks ago. That was a topic of conversation.
They're certainly working their connections pretty hard. So we're happened
to hear that our meat companies have got customers in market.
They're working their connections hard. So everyone's talking and I

(02:44):
guess we're just bracing and waiting and hoping it's not
a big impact.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Fingers across for you. Nathan Guard, chairman of the Meat
Industry Association. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen
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