Will's Word: Lessons from history - Why Trump's protectionist trade policies mirror NZ's past failures

US President Donald Trump has decided that slapping tariffs on just about everyone, including New Zealand, is the way to win at trade - it's not.

You could argue that we got off relatively unscathed compared to China's brutal 34 per cent tariff or the European Union's 20 per cent, but a 10 per cent tariff for New Zealand is still a slap in the face.

Protectionism sounds great if you ignore basic economics. The idea that shutting out foreign goods and making everything at home will somehow make a country richer is one of those myths that, frankly, just won't die.

History has shown time and time again that it simply doesn't work. New Zealand has been here before, remember Robert Muldoon, former Prime Minister? He thought it'd be a brilliant idea to protect local industries by keeping foreign competition out.

The result? A sluggish, inefficient economy that was falling behind the rest of the world. Then came along Roger Douglas and the fourth Labour government who basically cleaned the whole mess up in the 1980s.

They tore down trade barriers, opened us up to the global market, and the economy flourished. We went from an insular little economy that could barely compete to one of the most open, trade-friendly nations in the world, and I think that's a good thing.

So why on earth would we want to go backwards now? Global trade means cheaper products, more competition, and better innovation. When countries work together, it benefits us.

Apparently for Trump, he'd rather build walls, literally, than bridges. You could argue he's just playing to his voter base but still, now more than ever, we should be pursuing and pushing for open markets and trade agreements that benefit people.

We should be looking at a single market, similar to what the EU has done, rather than retreating into protectionist fantasies - that's what it is.

Listen to Will’s Word on Facebook below.

Bizarre that the Trump administration seems hell-bent on closing off the United States from the rest of the world.

The strategy does not work and to put it into context for you, go back into our own history here in New Zealand, and you will see we suffered.

Our economy suffered by having this isolated view of the world under the Muldoon era. It was an utter failure. I'm all for single market trade.

Let us not go back to our old ways, let us push forward, let us all work together. Because that is what's going to get our economies pumping, not shutting it off like the United States is doing.

That's Will's Word.