Professor Rod McNaughton: Why Trump’s tariffs highlight the need for NZ to build local capacity...

Looking inward: why Trump’s tariffs highlight the need for NZ to build local capacity

When retail executives start swearing during earnings calls, something is clearly amiss. That’s what happened recently when the CEO of United States-based luxury furniture retailer Restoration Hardware saw his company’s share price plunge by more than 25% in after-market trading.

Eldrede Kahiya: NZ government has promised to double exports (again)....

NZ government has promised to double exports (again) – but as history shows, this is easier said than done

With the goal of doubling exports over the next ten years, the National Party’s Boosting Growth Through Trade policy is now central to the coalition government.

Keith Woodford: New Zealand’s current account deficit, now running at $27 bln per annum.....

New Zealand’s current account deficit, now running at $27 bln per annum, is increasingly dominated by interest on historical deficits plus repatriated profits to overseas owners. Export growth is the only possible pathway to solve the problem

Almost everyone in New Zealand knows that per capita incomes have been drifting backwards for at least two years. Looking back further, Dean Brunskill here at interest.co.nz has authored a graph showing that per capita GDP in September 2024, which is the latest available data, was essentially the same as five years previously in pre-COVID September 2019.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 13/6/24

Govt sets about cutting red tape to promote food and fibre exports – and to enable us to pick up the pace on the road

The headline on a press statement posted on the government’s official website today suggested something significant had been decided for the country’s farmers, growers and fishers.

It declared:

Point of Order: NZ’s external deficit close to record levels......

.....so why aren’t the politicians talking about it?

As New Zealand confronts a near-record current account deficit few, if any, of the country’s politicians are talking about it or the underlying problems.

NZ’s external deficit is expected to continue narrowing, but at a slower pace than forecast a few months ago.

Don Brash: In defence of an independent foreign policy

The Prime Minister’s recent visit to Washington, during which she seemed to have signed New Zealand up as a strongly pro-US outpost in the South Pacific – and her forthcoming (at time of writing) attendance at a major NATO meeting in Europe in the next few weeks – should prompt some serious thought about our long-term interests.

After all, it was the US which unceremoniously withdrew from the Trans Pacific Partnership shortly after Trump became President at the beginning of 2017, thus turning its back on the open Pacific trading group which seemed to promise so much for the other 11 counties which had signed up to it.

Historically, New Zealand was closely aligned with the United Kingdom – “where Britain goes, we go too” was the largely unquestioned assumption on which we built our foreign policy for decades. This was an automatic, indeed reflexive, stance which very few New Zealanders questioned. We sent troops to support Britain in the Boer War, and without question in the First World War.