US Correspondent Logan Church reports from Washington DC as Winston Peters prepares to meet Marco Rubio.
It’s been just over a year since Winston Peters first met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio after Donald Trump returned to the White House.
For New Zealand, there was a lot riding on that meeting – the US President was threatening widespread tariffs, which could prove ruinous for a small trading nation in the South Pacific.
The tone of international politics was also already shifting, even more so than during Trump’s first term.
When asked about changes from this administration to the previous, Peters said to me afterwards: “There’s been a lot of alarmed comments by too many people about what it all means.
“And we’ve advocated from day one, let the dust settle, let’s find out what it all means. Caution is the name of the game here, and I’m pleased we’ve taken that position.”
Well, the dust has settled – the international order has been blown to bits, Trump is literally blowing Iran to bits, and New Zealanders are hurting. Badly.
The issue is not over whether the Iranian regime should be toppled – it's brutal and authoritarian. New Zealand has condemned the regime and slapped sanctions on it, as has much of the Western world.
The problem is how the US president is going about doing it, fighting a widespread, destructive war that is targeting military and civilian infrastructure alike - and without allies, other than Israel.
Impact on NZ
The knock-on effect of that is being directly felt by every New Zealander - Trump wages war on Iran. Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz. A huge amount of oil stops moving. Less oil arrives in New Zealand. There’s less petrol for everyone. Prices go up.
At a higher level, countries like New Zealand only thrive – and survive, for that matter – because most countries, big and small, agree to a set of rules, from trade to how warfare is conducted.
The US doesn’t care about any of that – in fact, they’ve made it quite clear their only doctrine is ‘peace through strength’.
New Zealand has never advocated for this approach to diplomacy. If anything, because we can’t. We control some large islands with a very small defence force and don’t possess resources to project military strength.
So, with that in mind, what will our Foreign Minister’s approach be to his meeting with the top US diplomat tomorrow? Can New Zealand keep playing the ‘let’s be friends’ card when so many Kiwis are hurting? Or will Winston Peters deliver a ‘yeah nah, that’s not cool, please stop’ message?
It’s likely he’ll try a combination of both, calling for de-escalation and a return to diplomacy and an international rules-based order. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon signalled as much today. All of that, of course, wrapped up in as much Kiwi charm as Winston Peters can muster.
Whether the US will listen or not is another story.
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