The Political Case for a New Zealand-US Free Trade Agreement
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Loading... - Murphy Trevor
- 14 Mar 2023
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In the academic field of international relations, New Zealand occupies a role of some distinction as a “trading state,” alongside such economic powerhouses as Germany, Singapore, and South Korea. The trading state concept was first articulated by Richard Rosecrance in his 1986 book “The Rise of the Trading State.” Rosecrance made the argument that trading states recognize that “they can do better through internal economic development sustained by a worldwide market for their goods and services than by trying to conquer and assimilate large tracts of land.”
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon (1975-84) would have agreed with Rosecrance. In 1980, Muldoon made the observation that “our foreign policy is trade. We are not interested in the normal foreign policy matters to any great extent, we are interested in trade.” But Muldoon was a shrewd, if controversial, politician who was fully aware that trade occurs in a geopolitical context. And the geopolitical context of 2023 differs markedly from the heyday of globalization between 1991 and 2016, when the idea of an international rules-based order enjoyed pride of place in the liberal democratic world.
This reality was underlined by then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at Sydney’s Lowy Institute in July of last year, when she summed up the reality of present-day world politics with the statement that “it’s grim out there.” Read More…
