Nuclear ban brings N.Z. trade problems

Press, 9 August 1985, Page 10

Nuclear ban brings N.Z. trade problems

The refusal to take United States nuclearpowered or armed ships is causing New Zealand trade problems, according to Dr John Morris, a New Zealander living and working in the United States. He is the 1985 Sir John Ormond visiting fellow at Lincoln College and he is spending July and part of August teaching marketing courses as well as consulting on export marketing with New Zealand businessmen and trade organisations. He was born and brought up in Oxford, North Canterbury, gained a bachelor of agricultural science from Lincoln, did a masterate while lecturing there and then a doctorate at Cornell University in the U.S. He is one of eight senior vicepresidents of the Safeway supermarket organisation. The nuclear ships issue needed to be separated into moral or ethical questions and a trade question, he said.

“Morally I agree with New Zealand’s stance. “Pragmatically, in a trade sense, it is the wrong thing to do.” He said Americans were very nationalistic and selfcentred. They had a simple view of things — you were either “on their team” or you were not. “Right now New Zealand is not on their team. “You get a few headlines in the press and then nothing else about New Zealand. “People in industry start to wonder what their sources of supply will be like because the U.S. administration has put an embargo on trade with Nicaragua, for example. “I am sure there are those in the U.S. who think that the same thing might happen about New Zealand, so they start to look for alternative sources of supply. “It has also eroded a lot of the goodwill that New Zealand has in the U.S. Congress,” he said.