Agree with
@grimmy77 above about your rehashed argument.
If anything, it has even less weight to it now than it did pre-COVID. At the height of the Australia-China trade tensions, China was banning Australian exports left right and center. Yet it did not go anywhere near any NZ products, let alone dairy. They could not even stomach a ban on Australian dairy.
The reality is (and as the Abbott crisis has shown in the US) the political class do not want to do anything to jeopardise supply of high quality infant formula. Can you imagine the ramifications of a supply shortage or contamination scandal in China? At a time when they are trying to placate families and encourage higher birth rates?
And that supply of high quality formula is still dependent on NZ, as China are for a massive proportion of their overall dairy supply, even factoring in their domestic production increases. NZ is the second largest source of IF imports in China.
Add to this the China-NZ free trade agreement, RCEP, and various Chinese vested interests in A2M's success...
Nothing in life is risk free but to call all of these advantages a "crap position to be in frankly" strikes me as a bit silly.
(20min delay)