Winston Peters ‘seriously pleased’ with Marco Rubio meeting, but no answer on tariffs

Foreign Minister Winston Peters said he was “seriously pleased with the outcome” of his first in-person meeting with American counterpart Marco Rubio this morning (NZ time).

Peters gave little away in terms of detail of the meeting. When asked to give specifics on his conversation, Peters replied, “it’s work in progress”. He said there was a discussion of tariffs and that he was leaving the US more confident than when he arrived.

“We’ve got time in the next few months to make sure we bed those things in,” Peters said.

Peters said the visit “provided the starting point for considering what constructive cooperation between New Zealand and the United States might look like in the months and years ahead”.

Peters described his trip to the US as a “success” and said his job was now to return to Cabinet to discuss what he had learned during his trip.

He had been keen to position the trip as a listening exercise. The Trump administration knew what New Zealand wanted from the relationship and Peters was keen to know what the Americans wanted from New Zealand.

“We came here to listen to the new administration and to be clear about what is important to New Zealand. Today we enjoyed a substantive and productive discussion with the Secretary on a broad range of issues,” Peters said.

He gave no indication whether the talks were enough to secure New Zealand an exemption from agricultural tariffs the Trump administration has promised to impose on imports to the US from April 2.

When asked about what aspects of the trading relationship were discussed, Peters answered by talking about New Zealand’s long pursuit of a trade deal and its longstanding position advocating free trade.

“We shared significant information, for example that since 1870, we have been asking them about a trade agreement and I pointed out to him how patient we were,” Peters said, referring to the government of Julius Vogel, which attempted to negotiate tariff concessions with the US and Australia.

“On the matter of tariffs, we set the standard four decades ago and other countries were catching up in terms of fairness. He understood that, so we came away much more confident than when we came here,” Peters said.

New Zealand radically reduced tariffs from 1987 onwards, dropping most to less than 20% by 1992 and extending this to less than 10% by 1996. Many other countries maintained higher tariffs. New Zealand’s remaining low tariffs are often used as concessions in negotiating trade deals with other countries. They do little to protect domestic industries or raise revenue.

Despite not having a free trade agreement with the US, New Zealand trades a significant amount with the country. In the year ending March, the US became New Zealand’s second largest export market, nudging ahead of Australia. In the year to December 2024, total exports were worth $16.04 billion.

Trade with the US is growing at an astonishing rate, largely because of impressive economic growth on the American side and a strong US dollar (something the Trump administration is keen to see to).

Exports to the US are up 60% by value on pre-pandemic levels.

Imports from the US, however, have fallen behind —something the Trump administration is keen to fix. In 2019, New Zealand imported $9.6b from the US, giving the relationship a trade surplus in New Zealand’s favour of about $1b. That surplus grew to $4b in the year to December, when New Zealand imports totalled just $12b.

Peters took questions on the breakdown of the ceasefire in Gaza, but would not give a Government position saying he would not “rush to make comment”.

“We’ve got to find out how this happened. What started it? What’s the background?” he said.

Peters has had a busy few days in Washington DC. It is an intense diplomatic time in the US capital with President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreeing to a limited 30-day ceasefire after a marathon 2-hour phone call.

Earlier in the week, Peters met President Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

He dined at the NZ Ambassador’s residence with Sebastian Gorka, Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism and Morgan Ortagus, Deputy Special Envoy for the Middle East.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters with Trump Administration officials Morgan Ortagus and Sebastian Gorka.

Gorka is a longtime ally of Trump’s and played an active role in Trump’s first presidential campaign and was appointed as national security advisor to the President during his first administration.

Later today he will meet Ken Martin, the recently elected Democratic national committee chairman, maintaining a longstanding convention of maintaining relationships with both sides of the American political system.

Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.