Goff knows you don’t do unilateral bottom lines in trade

Phil Goff was Foreign and Trade Minister for many years, and most would say he was a very good trade minister. The China FTA is a huge credit to him (and Clark).

He also knows that one rule to trade negotiations is that the parties do not publicly lay out bottom lines, or rule things out. The reason for this is simple – doing so destorys negotiations. The moment one country says publicly “we will never ever agree to this”, it means all the other countries will do the same. And then you have nothing to negotiate.

So reading the Andrea Vance story:

New Zealand’s drug-buying agency should not be sacrificed for a trade deal with the United States, Labour leader Phil Goff says. …

But Mr Goff said yesterday: “We should not be trading Pharmac off for a free trade agreement with the US.” The agency was an “absolute bottom line and we should not be trading it away”.

You need to understand Goff is saying something in Opposition, he would never ever say in Government.,

For the record as a fiscal conservative, I think Pharmac is great and keeps the cost of drugs down for the NZ taxpayer. I find it hard to imagine that the US could offer us something so good that the Government would consider major changes to Pharmac. But again to have negotiations proceed in good faith, you can’t lay down unilateral bottom lines in public.

Personally I’m sceptical that the US will offer anything greatly worthwhile in terms of trade access. Their rhetoric is much stronger than their commitment to free trade.  However there are strategic advantages to the US in concluding an agreement, so maybe they will actually offer something decent.