Ryan Bridge: We're getting a Free Trade Agreement with India

New Zealand is going to sign this free trade deal with India. The massive boost we got and still enjoy from Phil Goff’s signing of the China FTA is still very much fresh in mind. Hipkins sounds pretty upbeat about it, with a few questions to be asked, but he says caucus will look at it and make a decision.  Of course, it’ll need support across the aisle because NZ First isn’t keen. The Europeans have just done a massive deal with Delhi overnight. Ursula von der Leyen is in India, getting the red carpet treatment from Modhi.  Combined they make up 25% of the world’s GDP and the market size? Two billion people. They’ve been negotiating for years and years, but finally have a deal, in part because of a Trump’s tariffs but also because India has managed to secure protections for dairy. They say Delhi "has prudently safeguarded sensitive sectors, including dairy…”. We generally treat trade as a bipartisan issue and there’s little reason to think this deal will be any different - barring any major red flags with the details, many of which we the public don’t know yet but that the Opposition’s being consulted on. But if that checks out, it’s probably going to be a rubber stamp.  After all, we’re like the world’s FTA cheerleaders. We basically go round international meetings with a clipboard trying to sign people up.  We now have 70% of our global trade covered by FTAs. It’s reasonable to only expect that will increase.  And perhaps easier once Trump leaves office, too.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.