Welcome noises on trade
Prime Minister Bill English has finished his Grand Tour through Europe, with more than a few travel snaps to reflect on. Trade loomed largest. Both British and European leaders were eager to talk about how speedily they might conclude a free trade deal with New Zealand. Britain’s new Prime Minister Theresa May, who has now made it abundantly clear she will pull her country decisively out of the European Union, called for a ‘‘bold’’ new deal with New Zealand. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said a deal with the EU could be completed in three years – much faster than usual.
This is all very flattering for New Zealand, and potentially rewarding too, if handled deftly.
Of course there are ironies aplenty. It was Britain’s entry into the European Economic Community in the 1970s that forced New Zealand to look for other places to sell its goods. And while the new urgency is a result of the Brexit vote – both Britain and Europe want to show they can make progress in its wake – it’s also surely true that the vote was a rejection of the kind of cosmopolitan politics that are the stuff of trade deals.
Out of an environment of deepening nationalism and insularity, then, New Zealand might win greater links to some of its biggest trading partners.
All very strange, but such are the eddying waters of international trade politics.
Thus the need for care. Even in wide-open New Zealand, some people have legitimate concerns about how some recent deals have unfolded – the ill-fated Trans Pacific Partnership, most obviously.
Of course New Zealand needs trade, and needs to strike whenever the world gives us an opening. But it also needs to coolly analyse – and publicly explain – the real benefits of any deal, especially when our critical agricultural exports are so often the ones that big countries refuse to give an inch on.
Most deals will be worth signing. Occasionally, if they are stuffed with quasi-judicial stateless tribunals, copyright extensions, and higher drug prices, they might not be.
For now, the British and European deals are not much more than talk. The atmosphere might shift again, especially as Britain cannot sign a deal until it is out of the EU, at least two years from now. But New Zealand is right to aggressively pursue both. English struck the right tone on all of this, including his refusal to pick between Britain and the Europeans.
A moment of greater awkwardness, however, came when European Council president Donald Tusk called on New Zealand to take in more refugees. Apparently to English’s surprise, Tusk called the issue a ‘‘personal sensitivity’’ for the New Zealand leader.
English has given no public signal of such feeling. Yet Tusk is right. In the midst of a historically vast tide of refugees, New Zealand’s intake is appallingly low, even after a modest increase last year.
English has a reputation as a conservative with a heart, from his diagnosis of prisons as ‘‘moral failures’’ to his commitment to the fine-sounding, if somewhat nebulous, idea of ‘‘social investment’’. But the question is how far this generosity goes.
If the European prod on refugees is a piece of trade diplomacy, New Zealand should be happy to give in to it. Actually, we shouldn’t need the nudge at all.
As some borders go up, others might fall.