Wednesday, 03 December 2025 09:40

A hungry world

Written by The Hound

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OPINION: The Hound reckons the argument run by the ‘agribusiness elite’ that the market will punish our exports if we don’t fall into line with spurious targets like the Paris Accord doesn’t pass the sniff test.

Our biggest red meat market recently did a backflip on tariffs, chiefly because America needs cheaper food, and New Zealand has it.

The tariffs, part of Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda, were introduced in April at 10%, then raised to 15% in August.

Then in November, Trump announced that the tariffs on products representing around 25% of our exports to the US and worth about NZ$2.2 billion annually, would be removed, effective immediately.

Other nations are no different: the UK, for instance, can’t feed itself and imports nearly 40% of its food.

China imports 35%, Japan 60% and Saudi Arabia 80%. The world is too hungry to care about our methane targets!

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