{"id":530316,"date":"2026-07-17T07:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T07:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/530316\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T07:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T07:48:08","slug":"no-surprise-trade-minister-todd-mcclay-says-potential-higher-us-tariffs-are-not-unexpected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/530316\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018No surprise\u2019: Trade Minister Todd McClay says potential higher US tariffs are not unexpected"},"content":{"rendered":"

McClay said the Government had indicated it expected a new mechanism would be put in place to reinforce the tariff rate US President Donald Trump had campaigned on.<\/p>\n

The FIT partnership meeting has been one of the biggest trade gatherings held in New Zealand for two decades. <\/p>\n

Ten trade ministers and about 100 delegates representing 21 countries jetted into Auckland for the meeting.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the week, McClay told the Herald of the meeting\u2019s importance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a global gathering, hosted by New Zealand, at a time when the world trading system is under real pressure. Ministers are coming to Auckland to focus on reducing barriers and boosting trade,\u201d McClay said.<\/p>\n

The 16 FIT Partnership countries (Brunei, Chile, Costa Rica, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Rwanda, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay) are small and medium-sized economies that rely on trade.<\/p>\n

Speaking after the event, the Minister for Trade and Investment said 13 ministers had issued a ministerial declaration on economic security, 14 ministers issued a ministerial declaration on digital trade facilitation, and eight countries joined a plurilateral agreement on non-tariff barriers.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext steps under the work stream on strengthening the rules-based trading system, which reinforces the role of our partnership, as in supporting a predictable, transparent, non-discriminatory, open and fair global trading system.\u201d<\/p>\n

McClay said the role of small and medium-sized economies like New Zealand was to build consensus, discuss and negotiate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a very straightforward message for New Zealand exporters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201c[There are] many New Zealanders whose jobs rely upon those exports.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will continue to look to negotiate high-quality trade agreements with like-minded partners that are fair and balanced that grow two-way trade equally so that they can have certainty.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Herald reported earlier today how Switzerland looks set to be the next cab off the rank in new free trade negotiations with New Zealand. <\/p>\n

The landlocked country, known for its luxury goods, financial services and dramatic alpine views, took part in the FIT Partnership meeting.<\/p>\n

McClay met Switzerland\u2019s State Secretary, Helene Budliger Artieda, on the sidelines yesterday. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe and I know each other very well now,\u201d McClay told the Herald after the meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are two of the four founding countries of the Future Investment Trade Partnership. We are like-minded countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe like to respect the rules, and I would hope that we can get to a point of she and I working out the next steps forward that could lead to a trade negotiation with Switzerland.\u201d<\/p>\n

A deal with Switzerland is part of National\u2019s pledge to kick off trade deals with seven new countries <\/a>across five continents if re-elected.<\/p>\n

The first tranche identifies Brazil, Switzerland, Argentina, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Uruguay and the European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) as \u201cpriority markets\u201d that collectively represent 700 million people with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of more than US$5 trillion ($8.76t).<\/p>\n

Switzerland is ranked 20 out of 243 trading partners in terms of total trade value.<\/p>\n

\u201cSwitzerland, as an example, has a population larger than ours, but they are exponentially wealthier consumers,\u201d McClay said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the wealthiest countries in the world and, for New Zealand, countries to actually be able to get companies to get access through some of the work that FIT partners are doing this week or through a free trade agreement, not only will it give them a head start, they\u2019ll do exceptionally well there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RolexRolex is among the luxury Swiss-made watch brands. <\/p>\n

Switzerland is not part of the European Union and has a high cost of doing business, meaning New Zealand companies usually target high-margin, premium or niche sectors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a huge market for us, but it can be,\u201d McClay said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge in Switzerland will be some of the rules and regulations, some of the standards.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have very high standards in New Zealand, but if you have to comply with theirs and they\u2019re just done differently than here, there\u2019s a cost to that. And so what a trade agreement does is give certainty.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means you have rights and obligations in a market and if you go there and invest your time and your capital, then actually those rules won\u2019t change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two-way trade between New Zealand and Switzerland was worth $1.88 billion in the year ending December 2025. New Zealand exports to Switzerland were $429 million, comprising $100m in goods and $324m in services. Key exports included travel services, meat and edible offal, and hides and skins.<\/p>\n

New Zealand imports from Switzerland were $1.45b, comprising $624m in goods and $825m in services. Key imports included transport services, pharmaceuticals, clocks and watches, insurance and pension services, and charges for the use of intellectual property.<\/p>\n

Officials will hold their first meeting in September.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon signed a food and fuel deal in Singapore in May<\/a>.<\/p>\n

McClay told the Herald the Singapore deal would officially be ratified and come into force today.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat agreement we signed just a few months ago in Singapore with the Prime Minister guarantees the two countries will not restrict the sale of essential goods,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the case of Singapore, they\u2019re guaranteed to always provide us, sell us, fuel, medicines and chemicals and in return we\u2019re guaranteed to always supply them with the high-quality food that we produce.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is coming into force much more quickly than is usual for deals of this size.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two countries have worked remarkably quickly because the Prime Minister of Singapore and Christopher Luxon told the ministers to go quickly so we can create certainty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are other countries here during this meeting that have asked us about it and are indicating they might like to join it or do something bilaterally or perhaps part of FITP.\u201d<\/p>\n

McClay said Korea, which is in Auckland as an observer, was one of those.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I will be advocating for as the chair of the meeting formally tomorrow is that this agreement [between] Singapore and New Zealand has more than just supply chains.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the FIT countries are smaller nations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are small and medium-sized economies in the world who are trade-dependent or at least trade is important for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a trade agreement, but what it does is it allows us to come together and say, let us work out ways to take on treaty-level commitments, binding commitments to make it easier to trade, to reduce barriers.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s look at things like paperless trade as an example, which doesn\u2019t sound very interesting, but for a New Zealand company, if you have e-certification, that means that your product can go to any one of those countries without having to do more paperwork and it crosses that border almost instantly.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are more productive, your costs go down, and you have greater certainty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katie Bradford is a senior correspondent at the Herald. She has been a broadcast journalist for more than 20 years and was based in the press gallery for 10 years. She specialises in politics, business and Auckland issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McClay said the Government had indicated it expected a new mechanism would be put in place to reinforce…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[192,138,124,658,266,13484,88232,6722,111,139,7805,5006,69,6046,1436,312,9939,88,16124,7677,1361,22505,584,30645,9938,3040,80],"class_list":["post-530316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-are","tag-business","tag-could","tag-goods","tag-government","tag-higher","tag-mcclay","tag-minister","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-no","tag-not","tag-nz","tag-potential","tag-rise","tag-says","tag-states","tag-surprise","tag-surprised","tag-tariffs","tag-that","tag-todd","tag-trade","tag-unexpected","tag-united","tag-us","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530316","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=530316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}