He also aims to “seriously upgrade” New Zealand’s bilateral partnership with Korea when he attends the APEC Summit there later this week.
Our fifth largest trading partner, Luxon intends for New Zealand to be one of Korea’s most important global relationships.
“That’s really what we’re here to do, is just make sure we’re doing everything we can to open up and get to the top drawer of relationships with these countries so that we can create opportunities for our businesses to come in and sell a lot of stuff.”
He admitted the flow-on effect of US trade tariffs are concerning for many of New Zealand’s trade partners in Asia, with some nations facing hikes as high as 40%.
But Luxon confirmed there are plans in place to prevent global free trade from breaking down, citing discussions he had with President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen earlier this year.
Speaking of European Union, CPTPP and ASEAN nations, he said: “We’ve made a decision that we really want to make sure that those blocs actually have interfaces that work with each other.
“So when there are trade disputes, we keep working through the rules-based system, that we actually have an avenue for talking about trade and economics between those blocs as well.”
Luxon said the relationship between the US and China would certainly be a “dominant conversation” later in the week, noting it is in the “collective interest” for the conversation to go well.
“We actually all want them to, you know, de-escalate, and actually get a better understanding of each other and to get it sorted basically, so we don’t have the chaos and disruption that we’ve been experiencing.”
He was unsure whether he would have the opportunity to meet with US President Donald Trump himself and planned to “just see what happens”.
