Schadenfreude Is Not Enough

What’s in New Zealand’s Interests as America Flips the Coin?

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

My political instincts are shaped by a few core convictions. I’m against taxation for the purpose of egalitarian redistribution, I believe in law and order and, perhaps most of all, I’m sceptical of the state pushing secular humanist values.

One unhappy but undeniable reality for me, therefore, is the dominance of liberalism in media, academic and state institutions. It is a dominance that prevails across the Western world and is so entrenched that it is just taken for granted. That leads to a lot of arrogance and daily hypocrisies that are often hard to endure.

In no small measure, the appeal of former US president Trump finds its provenance in reaction against liberal smugness and cocksuredness. No person has more persistently frustrated the cultural and political elect than the former real estate developer and game show host from Queens. And even those who despair of his caudillo pretensions often find it hard not to take some guilty enjoyment when he upsets the sanctimonious scolds of institutional liberalism.

Because we are saturated in American popular entertainment, New Zealanders often feel drawn into US culture wars. But our affinities to the various squabbling factions of the American political scene should never come before our affinity to our own country. Before any of that, we are New Zealanders and so we should view developments overseas with an eye to our own national interests.

New Zealand is a small country with an open economy, heavily dependent on trade. We don’t have a big domestic market that can absorb the costs of protectionism. Nor can we insulate ourselves from global economic shifts and any turning away from the trend towards liberalisation on which so much of our prosperity depends.

This is where the policies of Trump and his allies, especially running mate J.D. Vance, are hostile to our interests. Both men speak of a desire to turn inward, to erect barriers to trade and to roll back the global economic integration that has driven growth for decades.

There is an economic consensus that tariffs and trade restrictions hurt everyone in the long term and the US will suffer as a result of them. But the will be particularly damaging to smaller economies like ours. There is a lot of ruin in a country, but much less in a smaller country on the fringes than the world’s hegemonic superpower.

Not every aspect of globalisation has been positive. But a wholesale retreat from trade would do more harm than good and much more countries that rely on access to international buyers. That’s us, by the way.

So if the U.S. imposes new trade barriers or restricts market access in a way that destabilises global trade networks and causes others to follow, New Zealand will suffer. So it’s hard to see how a Trump victory will really be in our national interest.

If Trump wins, it will be tempting to revel in cultural adversaries set their hair on fire. But such moments of satisfaction are fleeting. They don’t put food on the table or create opportunities for us and our children. They don’t advance New Zealand’s economic security or ensure that the next generation has a reason to build their futures here.

So as the world waits to see how America chooses, we should hope not for momentary glee but for a result that supports a stable and open global order. New Zealand needs trade, cooperation and international economic engagement. Culture wars are potent for good reason, but our long-term interests demand a different focus.