U.S. role 'not practical’

Press, 26 October 1984, Page 3

U.S. role 'not practical’

Wellington reporter New Zealanders should not look to the United States to guarantee their economic security, said the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, yesterday. He was addressing the Asia-Pacific Council of American Chambers of Commerce on international trade. “When New Zealand found to our great consternation that we could no longer depend on Britain to guarantee our economic prosperity there was a tendency to look for reassurance in the form of another

guarantor,” he said. “During the 1960 s much hope was placed in G.A.T.T., hope that was disappointed by the failure of the major industrial producers to apply the principles of the agreement to agricultural exports with the same willingness they applied them to manufactured goods,” said Mr Lange. “Some in New Zealand have looked to the United States to take the part of guarantor. “That is not a practical proposition and to suggest it does as much of a disservice to the United States as it does to New Zealand,” he

“It is damaging when politicians and others put it in the mind of the public that the United States can guarantee our economic security and a market for our export trade. That is to create expectation which cannot possibly be fulfilled.”

Mr Lange said there was “absolutely no point in New Zealand’s feeling betrayed or outraged” because it could not get the access it might like to the United States.

“We have to accept that the United States has a powerful agricultural lobby

whose interests are not New Zealand’s interests and we have to deal with it,” said Mr Lange. New Zealand producers would in future respond to “the people who actually pay the bill,” he said. “We are unilaterally moving to reduce frontier protection against imports. “It is the absolutely determined view of the Government that we will not have production in New Zealand tailored any more to meet the parameters of a subsidy, but we will have production which is con-sumer-oriented and marketoriented.”