Mid Canterbury will have to “wait and see” how Donald Trump’s re-election impacts our exports, Federated Farmers has said.

Trump earned almost 75 million votes to become the 47th United States president last week.

One of several campaign promises he made was to impose tariffs as large as 20% on goods imported into America.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, New Zealand sent $14.6 million worth of goods to the US over the last financial year.
The US is our second largest export market, behind China, and grew 15% last year.
Federated Farmers Mid Canterbury president David Acland said there is a level of uncertainty as Trump hasn’t confirmed any tariffs yet.
“If everyone’s facing it globally, the same tariff, then basically it’s inflationary for the US consumer.”
Tariffs are a tax aimed at encouraging the trade of local products.
Trump’s proposed tariffs would make it more expensive to import New Zealand goods, like red meat and dairy, bringing up the cost of those items for the US consumer.
“It’ll just make it more costly for our goods in the US,” Acland said, “therefore
you’re not as competitive against massively produced goods.”
He said tariffs were a perennial problem for New Zealand.
“Tariffs are not new and we’ve been trading for a long time, but any tariff globally, wherever it comes from, distorts trade.  

"What that distortion does to global trade is the unknown.”
Acland said building long-term relationships with tariff- imposing countries
was important for Aotearoa.
He said he won’t know what will happen under Trump’s tariffs until they’re
introduced.

By Jessica Bleach