I don't think NZ has sustained trade surpluses throughout my entire life. The government behaves reasonably prudently (financially) but the public as a group do not. I would be happy to see regulatory settings that incentivise more exporting and less consumption of imported product (from a micro focus I see potential for a rise in electric vehicles and a decline in fossil fuel vehicles to help our trade balance) so that genuine progress can be made on reducing the scale of private debt in NZ.