New Zealand has found its hedge against a fractured world order

Three leaders in a month is not a coincidence

The diplomatic calendar has rarely looked this busy. This week Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul was in New Zealand to mark 70 years of diplomatic relations and launch a strategic partnership. Last week Vietnam’s President Tô Lâm was in Wellington for trade talks. The month before, New Zealand upgraded its relationship with the Philippines, and discussions are underway to elevate ties with Indonesia and Malaysia.

That density is not diplomacy for diplomacy’s sake. As China and the United States compete for influence, Southeast Asian countries are diversifying hard, and New Zealand is quietly becoming part of that hedge. For exporters, it opens a genuinely commercial window in food, services, education and tourism, well beyond our two biggest geopolitical obsessions.

The numbers already stack up

This is not a punt on future promise. New Zealand’s exports to Southeast Asia hit $10 billion in 2025, up 9% on the prior year. Of that, $8.4 billion came from food and beverages, a 50% increase since 2018. More than 150 New Zealand companies export to Singapore alone, the region’s largest single market for us.

Step back further and Asia as a whole took 43% of New Zealand’s exports, with two-way trade topping $93 billion in 2024-25. Thailand is now a top 10 trading partner, buying $1.6 billion of New Zealand products in the year to March 2026. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has pointed to a shared goal of tripling two-way trade with Thailand by 2045.

Why everyone is hedging at once

The acceleration has a driver. Damien Cave, Vietnam bureau chief for the New York Times, describes it plainly. “Across Southeast Asia and frankly across the whole world, I think there’s really an urge to diversify, to do whatever you can to get out from under the pressure of the two great superpowers by building relationships with other countries,” he says. He calls the strategy “mass hedging and mass multi-alignment”.

Suzannah Jessep, chief executive of the Asia New Zealand Foundation, says “there has been an incredible amount of activity around Southeast Asia” reflecting “a sort of new era of regional diplomacy”, driven partly by milestone anniversaries and partly by geopolitical pressure. Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs are the proximate catalyst. Some of the highest US tariffs landed on Southeast Asian countries, giving those economies every reason to spread their risk.

Vietnam is the one to watch

Vietnam is the flagship. It grew at 8% last year and Tô Lâm has set a target of at least 10% annual growth over the next five years, chasing high-income status by 2045 on a South Korean industrialisation model. New Zealand elevated ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in February 2025, with a $5 billion two-way trade target for 2026, up from $2.9 billion in 2024. A market of more than 100 million people wants New Zealand’s agritech, geothermal, satellite and Antarctic science expertise.

The halal prize

The Malaysia halal agreement signed in October 2025 shows how a partnership converts into revenue. Premium halal meat exports to Malaysia are worth about $60 million now but sit in a billion-dollar market, and the halal economy stretches into cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and tourism. With ASEAN’s roughly 700 million people, clean-green credibility is a real edge.

The scaffolding is already up

The access infrastructure exists. New Zealand is one of just seven countries to hold a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with ASEAN, sits inside RCEP, AANZFTA and CPTPP, and has bilateral deals with Singapore and Thailand. Ministers made 29 visits to South and Southeast Asia last year. In 2024, Luxon called the region where New Zealand’s “security, but also our prosperity, really lies going forward”, taking 24 business representatives on tour.

The honest ledger

None of this displaces China, which still buys roughly $20 billion of New Zealand exports a year, double the entire Southeast Asian bloc. And New Zealand runs a $6.36 billion trade deficit with ASEAN. The diplomatic momentum is real, but the diplomacy only pays if firms have the depth to convert access into sales. The scaffolding is built and the door is open now. The question is whether New Zealand exporters walk through it while the region is still actively shopping for alternatives to Beijing and Washington.

Sources

• As Southeast Asian countries diversify, NZ racks up new partnerships (2026-08-21)
• Milking the fruitful opportunities within Southeast Asia (2026-04-30)
• Superpowers loom large in PM’s Asia visit (2025-10-24)
• New Zealand strengthens Malaysia, ASEAN ties with halal agreement, Comprehensive Strategic Partnership
• Christopher Luxon readies for ‘full-on’ Southeast Asia tour (2024-04-14)
• New Zealand and ASEAN: Focusing on what’s right under its nose