Todd McClay, National's trade spokesperson, announced from the Port of Auckland that a National government would aim to strike free trade agreements with seven countries and one trading bloc within five years if the party won the 2023 election.

The target markets were Brazil, Switzerland, Argentina, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Uruguay, and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA — which includes Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway). That's eight countries in total when you count the EFTA nations individually. They span four continents and range from developing economies to wealthy, established trading partners.

McClay chose the Port of Auckland backdrop deliberately. He was signalling to exporters that National would treat trade negotiation as a top-priority job for government, not something left to officials to handle quietly behind the scenes.

Beyond traditional free trade agreements, McClay also flagged what he called "essential supplies agreements" — modelled on a deal New Zealand made with Singapore. Under that arrangement, Singapore promised to keep fuel flowing to New Zealand, and New Zealand agreed to supply food. McClay said this kind of narrow, focused agreement would become part of New Zealand's trade toolkit. The template made sense after global fuel supply chains tightened when the Strait of Hormuz faced closure. The idea is that these agreements target supply-chain security rather than broad tariff reductions across entire industries.

The geography reflects different strategic thinking for each market. Brazil and Argentina are Mercosur's largest economies — that's South America's main trade bloc. New Zealand has long wanted better access to their beef and dairy markets, but Mercosur's high external tariffs and internal politics have slowed a comprehensive bloc-to-bloc deal. Going after individual countries instead was a tactical shift. Bangladesh and Nigeria represent faster-growing economies where New Zealand services like education and agricultural technology could expand. Switzerland and EFTA are straightforward targets: wealthy, rule-based traders where New Zealand has no existing preferential agreement, and where barriers to exports like lamb and dairy are still real.

According to RNZ, McClay made this announcement as a campaign commitment before the election. Whether National, after winning, has actually made progress on these markets is a different question from what was promised.

Completing a single free trade agreement typically takes years of negotiation even when both countries want to do it. The New Zealand–EU agreement took over a decade from start to finish. Seven agreements in one term of government would require the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to run multiple negotiation tracks at once and hire more trade negotiators. That's a significant step up from how things usually work.

The essential supplies framing is the part most likely to grab attention inside government and among businesses. Traditionally, New Zealand's trade approach has centred on big, comprehensive deals that cover whole industries. A separate stream of smaller, security-focused agreements would be new. How these agreements are classified, what scrutiny Parliament gives them, and how they sit with international trade rules are practical questions McClay's announcement didn't address.

The five-year timeframe roughly matches one term in government. That's partly practical, but it's also political: it's long enough to sound credible, short enough to be measured before the next election.