Todd McClay: Trade Minister on the US investigating the possibility of tariffs on NZ lamb
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What is the current situation regarding US tariffs on New Zealand lamb?
trouble coming for our exports, specifically lamb this time. We're expecting the launch of a trade investigation. This is after the Supreme Court has twice now knocked back the original tariff plan. So what's it all mean? Todd McClay is the Trade Minister back with us. I think you alerted us to this was a couple of weeks ago. When is an investigation launching? Do you know?
Yeah, that's right. Look, I expect it's probably going to be launched over the next week or two. The US has said they will give us a firm heads up so that we can be very well prepared. But as you just said in the introduction, this is just part of the US looking at how they put that tariff wall back in place because, you know, the US Supreme Court found that what they'd done was illegal. So we're expecting an investigation.
When is the US expected to launch the investigation into New Zealand lamb exports?
I don't think there will be any tariffs anytime soon. It probably will take some time to work through, but it is just another bit of understanding uncertainty for New Zealand exporters into the US market.
Could this be illegal as well?
No, the way that he's doing it is based upon increase of exports and lamb from Australia and New Zealand. The ironic thing is that actually our exports have brought the price up for lamb and at the same time And what they're doing is there's a lot more consumption. So it helps U.S. sheep producers. But they'll go through the process and we'll see. It's not a very large volume of lamb that goes in there in the scheme of things. But, you know, the president does what the president does.
Yes, it does. Is it materially different to the beef? Because they don't have beef. They need beef. Do they need lamb or is it a different argument?
They don't need lamb, and that's a bit of the point where it's probably easy to put some sort of sanction on if they want to. But the point here is that lamb consumption in the U.S. has gone up considerably as a result of the marketing efforts of New Zealand and Australia, and the price goes up with it. So this is good for U.S. lamb producers, ironically. We'll be making that case. I'll be sending officials over. I'll be meeting with my counterpart in a couple of weeks in Paris at the OECD. We're making this case.
How might the US tariffs impact New Zealand lamb exports?
We'll get a fair hearing, but it's just, as I said, a bit more unstable.
Well, I mean, is this a negotiation or does Trump just wake up one morning and decide to do something?
I think it's a latter. But, you know, we will be able to look at the case and they'll look at it fairly. But at the end of the day, as I said, the president makes decisions.
All right. Well, fingers crossed on that.
Nice to talk to you, Trade Minister Todd McLean.
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