Foreign Minister Winston Peters told RNZ Christopher Luxon had not consulted with him ahead of the calls. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Winston Peters has chastised the prime minister for his spree of phone calls with world leaders about the US trade war, and advised politicians to "tone down".
The foreign minister told RNZ Christopher Luxon had not consulted with him ahead of the calls, adding "I hope that he'll get my message and he'll call me next time".
Luxon made a speech to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce on Thursday morning and proposed the European Commission work more closely with countries signed up to the Trans-Pacific trade pact - known as the CPTPP - to champion the rules-based trade order and provide some stability and certainty.
It came after the United States retaliated against China by hiking tariffs to 125 percent, while placing a 90-day pause on retaliatory tariffs for other countries. The US has since upped the China tariff to 145 percent.
Luxon followed his Wellington speech up with a series of phone calls that night with Indo-Pacific leaders and the European Union to gauge how they're interpreting the tit-for-tat trade war and implications it might have for their economies.
Speaking from Tonga on Friday, Peters offered some advice to the prime minister.
"Markets lose their nerve. Share market speculators lose their nerve. Politicians should not lose their nerve, and that's my advice," he told RNZ.
"There's no need to react at this point in time. Let's first find out what we're dealing with, let the dust settle in.
"My advocacy from the day this matter came up with the Trump tariffs - our job is to be ultra careful, ultra forward thinking in the interest of, guess what, the New Zealand economy, that's what matters, not our egos," he said.
"So my advice to politicians is tone down, wait till you see and know what's going on."
Speaking to Checkpoint Friday, Trade Minister Todd McClay said the prime minister and Peters are 'saying similar things'.
"We're being very calm as a government."
McClay said he, Peters and Luxon have all been talking to various people around the world to get feedback on the tariffs and trade war.
"The PM is right to be talking to prime ministers in other parts of the world, countries that we trade with, that have strong trading relationships with.
"If you take the European Union ... we have trade agreements with them, we're always talking to those countries about how we can bring down barriers and make it easier for exporters on both sides to trade with each other. This is just a continuation of that."
Asked if he had spoken with the Prime Minister's Office regarding the matter, Peters said "No, he didn't check it out when he made that speech and made those phone calls."
"So I hope that he'll get my message and he'll call me next time."
Foreign Minister Winston Peters speaks to media in Tonga. Photo: RNZ / Lillian Hanly
'Premature' calls - Winston Peters
On Thursday afternoon, Peters was asked about the developing tariff hikes, to which he said it was "what we expected, actually."
"Everybody was overreacting, everybody was talking too fast, everybody should have kept their counsel, kept their patience, and it's starting to unfold far less serious than people thought."
Asked about Luxon's idea to get CPTPP countries together with Europe and building a "trading bloc", Peters said it was "all very premature."
"We're trying to sort out this other thing with America and China's trade war, and we're rushing off with solutions - let's find out what happened there first."
He would not comment when asked if he was consulted by the prime minister before the speech.
Peters was asked again later if Luxon had discussed the idea of getting those countries together "to formulate some sort of joint response to the US action" with him, to which Peters replied "no."
When asked if he would expect to have that discussed given he is the foreign minister, Peters said he'd taken the stance that "experience matters."
"In this case, wait until we see what emerges with the tariff war that's going on."
He said it will come to a resolution, "much quicker than people think."
"So let's not panic here."
When asked what was wrong with the idea of engaging with other leaders regarding the CPTPP, Peters asked "what would you talk about?"
"What's the tariff regime going to be in the end? Do we know what that's going to be? No. If we don't know what that's going to be, what would you actually talk about? Think about it."
When asked if it was naivety from the prime minister, Peters suggested that question be put to Luxon.
Christopher Luxon reached out to several world leaders this week over trade concerns. Photo: RNZ/Marika Khabazi
Luxon dodges Peters' 'premature' comments
On Friday, ahead of Peters' interview in Tonga, Luxon took questions from the media in Hamilton.
He was asked by RNZ what he made of Peters describing his calls with world leaders being "premature".
Luxon disputed the characterisation of what he was being asked, and moved on.
"I gave a pretty broad ranging speech yesterday on trade, which was appropriate given the week we've been experiencing."
Luxon said he was doing three things "over the course of yesterday."
Firstly was to reach out to "key bilateral partners for New Zealand to say, what more could we be doing together in a world where we have a like-minded approach to trade?"
Secondly, he said, was to understand "how they've been interpreting the events of the last week, and what that means for them and their economies."
Thirdly, "making the case that we should be reaffirming the principles of free trade together," whether that was in an ASEAN bloc, or CPTPP bloc.
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