New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters is striking an optimistic tone as he heads to Washington to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to discuss relations between the two countries.
President Donald Trump’s intention to introduce across-the-board import tariffs is likely to dominate the discussion.
Peters says he will be taking a cautious approach and emphasising New Zealand’s value to the United States.
Much is at stake for New Zealand. Last year, the United States surpassed Australia to become New Zealand’s second-largest trading partner, behind China, with exports surpassing $9 billion for the first time. Meanwhile, New Zealand ranks 50th out of the 220 countries with which the United States trades.
Cautious Approach
Peters says he will try to ensure that the Americans understand “how important this country of New Zealand is to them and to the Pacific.”
He would not be drawn on specifics, however.
“I think it’s very wise when you’re going to see another country that you do them the courtesy of making your message to them first before you tell everybody else what you’re going to talk about,” he said.
“So I’m very, very cautious to stay in our lane, so to speak, to put New Zealand’s case, and to above all hear them out. Listen to their side of the story, so to speak.”
When asked if he was likely to meet the president during his visit, Peters was again circumspect.
“We don’t make comments like that. We'd rather put to you what does happen rather than build up all the expectations and then fail people when we get there,” he said.
A wide range of international issues will be discussed during Peters’ visit, and he will also meet with officials from the United Nations.
“Whether Ukraine, Gaza, the Indo-Pacific or security cooperation, there’s a lot to discuss, and we look forward to doing so both in New York and in Washington D.C.,” he said.
New Zealand-US Trade
In the year to March, New Zealand exported $14.6 billion (US$8.37 billion) in goods and services to the United States and imported $11.4 billion, resulting in a trade balance in its favour of NZ$3.5 billion.“Remember that until 2024 our balance of trade was pretty even,” Peters said.
“So we were not using the Americans, and we’ve been a free trade country since the mid-80s, and so we’ve got a good record to tell, and also we have already had tariffs on [exports of] aluminium and steel.
“Our job is to see what better we can get out of it, and let’s see how the talks develop.”
However, official figures show the trade gap widening after 2019.
Most of the gap is driven by services, for which the United States is New Zealand’s top export market. That includes travel, with an increase in passenger numbers of 159 percent in 2023, reaching 92 percent of pre-pandemic levels.
Other services exports picked up significantly during the pandemic, including telecommunications, computer and information services (growing by 80 percent between 2019 and 2023) and other business services, such as consulting and research and development, growing by 62 percent over the same period.
New Zealand’s goods exports to the United States are mostly produced by its primary sector, with meat and dairy products dominating. Meat was worth $2.2 billion and dairy $1.2 billion.
Even manufactured goods—worth $644 million in 2023—consists mostly of agricultural machinery.
The United States is New Zealand’s number one export destination for wine, worth $797 million in 2023. After Italy and France, New Zealand is the largest supplier of wine to America.
Major U.S. goods imports are concentrated in the aerospace sector—for example, mechanical machinery (turbo-jets and turbo-propellers) and aircraft and aircraft parts, which were collectively valued at $2 billion in 2023.
The United States is New Zealand’s third largest source and destination of foreign direct investment. In the year to March 2023, U.S. institutions held a total stock of investment of $64.6 billion in New Zealand, or 18.8 percent of the total investment stock.
