Regarding the "champion of free trade" idea that the article raises - this is pure fantasy. The idea of dropping your trade barriers and just hoping by some ma

Regarding the "champion of free trade" idea that the article raises - this is pure fantasy. The idea of dropping your trade barriers and just hoping by some magic sense of fairplay everyone else will do the same is ludicrous. Ignoring the prima facie illogic of expecting selfless altruism from your trading partners, I know from experience that this will not work - as does everyone else in NZ. We know this because it was the brain-dead approach our governments took in the late 80's. It has lead to us having NOTHING to offer in trade deals as we'd already given away the family silver. TL;DR, the OP is seriously confused about how economics works.