''Protectionism is bad news for New Zealand in the short term,'' Prof Robert Patman, who is visiting Germany, warned yesterday.
''And if Trump does what he has promised on the trade front it looks bad news,'' he said.
Prof Patman was asked about Mr Trump's opposition to the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, and his
''A Trump presidency looks like it will cause great uncertainty for relations between America and its friends and allies, at least in the short term,'' he said.
Asked if he was surprised by the election outcome, he said he was.
''But the Democratic Party should never have allowed someone like Hillary Clinton, under an FBI investigation, to be nominated as the party's presidential nominee,'' he said.
Prof Patman was asked about comparisons raised by some commentators with the Brexit situation, where pre-vote polls were close, but the outcome was different from what had been expected.
''Yes, the polls seem to have got it wrong again,'' Prof Patman said.
''I would hesitate to lump Trump's victory and Brexit together but both campaigns have been extremely economical with the truth, and judging by the results we seem to be living in a post-truth era!''
''Trump and the Brexiters offered apparently simple solutions to difficult problems. But you are only good as your opponent allows you to be politics, and in both cases their arguments were dismissed rather than vigorously contested.''
Prof Bill Harris, also of the Otago University politics department, said New Zealand faced, for the moment, a ''high level of uncertainty'' about the approach to trade and international relations generally, of the new US administration.
The US was ''extremely important'' as a global power, and the onus was on the new president to clarify what approach would be taken to trade and US allies.
Prof Harris acknowledged New Zealand was a small nation involved in trading with distant markets.
New Zealand needed clarification from Mr Trump about how the US would engage in the world, including its approach to trade and its allies.
But, ultimately, for New Zealand ''we don't have any choice'', and it would have to continue its relationship with the incoming president, despite any reservations we might have.
It was also critical the new US administration showed what kind of ''moral sense'' it had about atrocities inflicted on civilians in Syria, including by the Syrian Government and the Russian air force.
''I think he needs to make clear to Russia that there are limits to tolerance.''
There was a high level of uncertainty, and several contradictions in the way Mr Trump saw the world, and in some of his policy positions.
But he had raised expectations among people in the Rust Belt states who had been left behind by the US economic recovery.
Mr Trump would now have to produce workable policies, and people whose hopes he had raised would in future potentially hold him to account if he did not deliver.
