Nick Mowbray told Newstalk ZB<\/a> that with $2b of annual revenue coming from the US, the potential cost of tariffs to his company could run into the billions.<\/p>\nEven with the eventual lower 30% rate, this suggests Zuru is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars it paid in tariffs over the past year to be refunded.<\/p>\n
Importers had challenged the legality of last year\u2019s tariffs and in late February those appeals reached the Supreme Court, where Trump\u2019s use of emergency powers to impose the trade taxes was ruled unlawful.<\/p>\n
Courts ordered tariffs collected to date to be repaid, but the process \u2013 involving repaying 30,000 possible claimants more than US$200b collected over the past year \u2013 has proven complicated and elongated.<\/p>\n
Tracey Epps, a lawyer and trade consultant based in Wellington, said trade with the United States in 2025 had been chaotic.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a long time we\u2019ve relied on these international rules. They got breached sometimes, but, by-and-large, countries agreed not to raise tariffs above levels that they\u2019ve committed to under World Trade Organisation rules,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the US to come along and do what they\u2019ve done, that has caused huge disruption.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the refund process triggered by the Supreme Court ruling was still in flux and was \u201cstill very uncertain\u201d. She was not surprised to see companies affected filing lawsuits to protect their positions.<\/p>\n
Exports from New Zealand had a 15% tariff imposed by the United States. <\/p>\n
After Trump\u2019s legal defeat his administration cancelled the unlawful tariffs and used another mechanism to apply a flat 10% to all imports \u2013 including those from New Zealand.<\/p>\n
![\"US]()
US President Donald Trump after signing an executive order last year imposing tariffs worldwide that the Supreme Court later ruled as unlawful. Photographer \/ Francis Chung\/Politico\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n
New Zealand United States Council (NZUSC) executive director Fiona Cooper said the refund process only applied to registered importers \u2013 typically exporters with a large market in the US.<\/p>\n
She said the first 12 months of the Trump administration had delivered \u201ca year of ups and downs and challenges, but some opportunities too\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said she and the NZUSC \u201cdidn\u2019t welcome the imposition of these so-called reciprocal tariffs\u201d and the Supreme Court decision had been met \u201cwith some relief\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said large companies preserving their position with lawsuits was \u201cprobably a sensible thing to do\u201d.<\/p>\n
The moving feast of changing tariff rates \u2013 escalating seemingly on White House whims, only to be slashed after adverse court rulings \u2013 had proved testing for trade relations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe uncertainty has been terrible, and I\u2019ve been very impressed at the way that New Zealand companies have risen to the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cooper said smaller exporters not registered as importers had found conditions particularly difficult. <\/p>\n
These companies have had to deal with the disruptions of tariffs, particularly the removal of the de minimis rule that previously exempted smaller purchases from duties, but were not entitled to directly claim for refunds.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the bigger companies have a bit more flexibility and can shuffle things around,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Cooper said commercial relationships and contracts were unlikely to have contemplated the tariff roller-coaster of the past year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there may be some learnings for New Zealand companies about preparing for this sort of contingency in the future, and maybe putting that into contracts. In the absence of that now, they\u2019re just going to have conversations,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Cooper said it seemed possible that tariffs would become an ongoing part of the US-NZ trade relationship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we should necessarily assume that things will go back to the way they were once we have a new administration post-Trump,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt may be difficult for an administration to give up that tariff revenue, regardless of whether they\u2019re Republican or Democrat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter and ICIJ member covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism \u2013 including twice being named Reporter of the Year \u2013 and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting for business newspapers and national magazines.<\/p>\n
Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Questions sent to Zuru this week about the suit went unanswered. Zuru is one of several thousand large…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10712,167326,1349,14134,12474,2178,34750,266,8482,24176,16484,181795,1428,4380,111,43,139,69,1523,2572,6851,62382,24684,27950,9939,22193,133650,30246,7677,1361,2179,19096,9938,45082,3040,3608,113012,1525],"class_list":["post-340083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-claiming","tag-conglomerate","tag-court","tag-decision","tag-dollars","tag-donald","tag-entitlement","tag-government","tag-huge","tag-hundreds","tag-illegal","tag-leveraging","tag-manufacturing","tag-millions","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-president","tag-refund","tag-refunds","tag-ruled","tag-seeks","tag-states","tag-sued","tag-sues","tag-supreme","tag-tariffs","tag-that","tag-trump","tag-trumps","tag-united","tag-unlawful","tag-us","tag-were","tag-zealandfounded","tag-zuru"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}