What Exactly Was Winston Peters' Mission In Washington DC?

Thursday, 20 March 2025, 9:03 pm
Article: RNZ

Lillian Hanly, Political reporter

Analysis: Winston Peters heads home from Washington DC armed with fresh intel on what the new US administration is thinking, and the impact it might have on New Zealand and the wider Pacific.

His meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio came at the end of a series of high-level engagements, and after a range of decisions made by the Trump administration including comments by President Donald Trump himself, that were seen by some as a seismic shift for US trade and foreign policy.

Peters has been coy about any specifics in his meetings over the past week, insisting he would brief his Cabinet colleagues before speaking publicly on the issues.

"We came here on a mission, and I think the mission thus far has been seriously accomplished," he told RNZ.

But what exactly was the mission?

New Zealanders remain none the wiser as to whether they will be directly targeted by Trump's trade war, nor do they know whether there were any specific requests made on, for example, defence spending.

Peters has been careful to try manage those concerns, saying, "we came away much more confident than when we originally came here."

And he was fairly confident to begin with, having prepared significantly for this very meeting, and securing a range of other high level meetings while in the US, including with the National Security Advisor.

His preparation started before the US President was even elected - that's because Peters said Trump was clear about his proposed policies, and what's happening now was "utterly predictable". However, it's what will happen next that is of most concern to New Zealand.

The New York Times reported this week the OECD had updated their projections for global economic growth due to the uncertainty created by Trump's policies.

"A growing trade war and rapid policy shifts are expected to drag down economic growth in the United States and around the world."

Gary Hufbauer is a former US Treasury official, and senior fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics - writing extensively about the impact of Trump policies. He told RNZ the US had departed from the rules of international trade.

"The steps the Trump administration has taken have repudiated most of the post war US diplomacy.

"It's a systemic shift of the sort we really haven't seen in living memory."

Hufbauer said it's "disruptive", and that Trump sees that disruption as giving back to the American economy.

"He's trying to say it's short term pain for long term gain. And many people in my profession are quite skeptical on the long term gain."

On foreign affairs, too, there's been a departure from traditional US policies.

The Oval Office incident which saw President Zelenskyy receive a globally-watched telling off was shocking not only for the radical change to accepted diplomacy, it implied an expectation that Ukraine must accept what it is given. There are now concerns a ceasefire agreement may occur on Russian terms.

Ivo Daalder is the chief executive of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and a former US representative to NATO under the Obama administration.

He told RNZ the "President and this administration have abandoned more than 80 years of American foreign policy." That is that the US encouraged and instigated an "international order" through a series of security alliances based on the idea that open economic relations will be stabilising.

Daalder said the biggest ramification of this change was that the US is abandoning its main advantage, "its allies".

"The United States is throwing that away."

He said the US is treating its allies and friends as "no more and no different than any other country," and as a result, he thinks the US will be weaker and less able to achieve what it wants.

In response, he said, smaller powers have one of two choices, either to align with a big power, or stay out of the way.

That is the Washington DC in which Winston Peters walked into this week. His mission then?

"We came here to ask of the Americans as to what they wanted of us and to tell the Americans what we wanted of them."

Helen Clark tweeted this week criticising this approach and calling it "deeply injurious" to New Zealand's independent foreign policy.

Peters said in response that international relationships are a "two-way street".

"That's what independent foreign policy looks like.

"Every relationship that we've got internationally has the same dual purpose. We've got expectations of those countries, and they've got expectations of us."

And that they do - Peters confirmed the US did have expectations of New Zealand, "I came here fully expecting that those would be their expectations, and that's the way it turned out." But he wouldn't specify what they were.

When asked if an indication had been given by the US in terms of the amount of increased defence spending expected, Peters said "to the extent that the increasing of our expenditure was important."

"You can't surely expect the Pacific and the rest of the world to be looked after by one country and everybody else not pay anything at all.

"So at the very least, we knew we had to increase our expenditure, and I'll tell my colleagues what that figure is."

It comes at a time when the Defence Capability Plan is due for release in New Zealand any moment. It's been delayed several times.

Given the timing of the meeting with Secretary Rubio, any crucial information from that meeting will likely be considered as part of the DCP release. Budget Day is coming up in a couple of months and it will be a balancing act to meet those expectations - should the government choose to do so - and act within their financial constraints.

As for the impending threat of tariffs - Peters said he made clear New Zealand's position when it comes to trade, reminding the US New Zealand got rid of tariffs decades ago.

Whether that was enough to protect New Zealand from Trump's decision in the future, Peters wouldn't say, "as of right here right now we've done as good as we possibly can."

There was no guarantee from the administration that New Zealand would be exempt - but, given what happened to Australia, that wasn't to be expected.

On Russia and Ukraine, Peters said discussions on the potential ceasefire came up, but New Zealand's role in a potential peacekeeping operation did not.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon along with Peters have made clear Russia is the aggressor in the war, "everybody knows that," Peters said. When asked if he thought President Trump knew that, Peters bristled and said "I'm not here to insult anybody. Of course, he does."

The Pacific has long been an area of focus for Peters, having made a speech in 2018 in Washington DC calling for more focus in the region from the US. There are concerns cuts to the foreign assistance funding for the Pacific through US aid will leave a vacuum China could fill.

Peters met directly with Peter Marocco - the Director of the Office of Foreign Assistance - who is overseeing those cuts, signalling just how important it was to understand these changes in more detail.

Peters said "they get our point of view in terms of how essential it is in the Pacific and what our collective role should be in it."

"We discussed with them what elements were very, very critical about their present obligations in terms of the aid program and tried to find out from them where it was going forward.

"We know much more about what that future might be, but we are bound to wait their final decisions in April."

With trade, and any support in the Pacific then, New Zealand remains at the mercy of the decisions the Trump administration makes.

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