US role a front-row seat to history
Whole milk powder falls again at auction but analysts calm
The experience of a New Zealander who served in three White House Administrations suggests Chris Liddell will have a front-row seat to history while working as an assistant to Donald Trump.
Peter Watson grew up in Mt Eden and attended Auckland Grammar, but a career in law later spanned top US law firms and led to involvement in politics.
Watson worked for George Bush Snr’s administration as a director of Asian Affairs for the United States National Security Council, and later held top posts in the George W. Bush administration.
A Republican, he was appointed chairman of the high-powered US International Trade Commission by the Clinton administration.
Back in New Zealand in 2007, Watson — now president of the Dwight Group, a Washington DC-based investment bank — told the Herald of the experience and pressures of working in the White House, at times directly reporting to the President.
As Asian director of the National Security Council, the advisory group to the President, Watson’s role covered Southeast Asia, Indochina and the South West Pacific.
He played a part in efforts to end the rule of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and had to respond to coup attempts against the then Philippine president Corazon Aquino.
Watson, a dual citizen of New Zealand and the US, recounted being in the situation room when rebel forces were strafing Aquino’s presidential palace.
“When these crises are evolving, you always have to keep in the back of your mind a sort of DNA reference of what you stand for long-term,” he said of the experience.
Associate Professor Stephen Hoadley, international relations scholar at the University of Auckland, said a New Zealander being appointed to the sort of positions held by Watson and now Liddell was unusual.
That was despite a large number of foreigners working in government in the US, which was an “amazing open system”, Hoadley said.
As well as his business experience, Liddell was previously chairman of Project Crimson, a charitable trust that aims to protect New Zealand’s endangered pohutukawa and rata trees.
“He will be his own man — he has been chairman of Xero and he is a pretty strongminded individual.”
Hoadley said Liddell had the chance to make a difference.
Trump wanted governmental reform, change and efficiency “like a well-run business”, he said.
“If Liddell can contribute to tidying up the apparatus of US government that must be good for everyone.” half of home- Whole milk powder prices have failed to live up to expectations, dropping again at the latest GlobalDairyTrade auction.
It was a mixed bag for the Fonterra reference products, with the price of whole milk powder — the product with the greatest bearing on Fonterra’s farmgate milk price — dropping by 0.1 per cent to US$3283/tonne.
The decline in whole milk powder prices ran counter to dairy futures market trading which suggested a small gain of 1 to 3 per cent was likely.
Another key product, skim milk powder, fell by 1.6 per cent to US$2612/tonne and butter milk powder dropped by 10.1 per cent to US$2783/ tonne.
The only reference product to buck the trend was butter, which gained 1.6 per cent to US$4382 a tonne.
Overall, the GDT price index firmed by 0.6 per cent and the average winning price was US$3517/tonne.
Yesterday’s auction follows a softer than expected result in the first sale of 2017 a fortnight ago, in which whole milk powder fell by 7.7 per cent and prices overall dropped by 3.9 per cent.
Analysts said there was little in the latest auction to suggest that they would need to revise their farmgate milk price forecasts, which are in a range of $6.20/kg to $6.50/kg, against Fonterra’s forecast of $6.00/kg, but ASB said there was now downward pressure on its $6.50/kg forecast. additional reporting news.com.au
While the steep decline at the previous auction could be put down to thin holiday trading, the same could not be said of the latest sale, which drew in the regular number of participants.
“All up, the recent weak auction results have introduced some downside risk to our 2016/17 milk price forecast,” ASB Bank said. “But for now we stick with $6.50/kg.”
Westpac said buyer interest out of China looked to have improved over the past couple
Today’s auction was broadly in line with our expectations and leaves us comfortable with our forecast of a $6.20/kg farm gate milk price this season. Westpac Bank
of auctions, after falling away a bit through December. The bank expected to see some further moderation in prices in the months ahead.
“Today’s auction was broadly in line with our expectations and leaves us comfortable with our forecast of a $6.20/kg farm gate milk price this season,” it said.
Whole milk powder prices have fallen by 8 per cent this year. “To us, markets looked to have run a bit ahead of fundamentals through the latter part of last year, so some retracement hasn’t come as a surprise,” Westpac said.