Jacinda’s America Visit: NZ won hearts & minds – we lost wallets

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JA: Ummmmm, Clarke, what's he doing? CG: Easy there Santamaria, this isn't Al Jazeera

There is little doubt that the Prime Minister’s visit to America has been an enormous diplomatic victory in capturing hearts and minds.

She has generated a level of goodwill unmatched by the last 5 Prime Ministers combined.

From Harvard, to the Late Show to the White House, she has dazzled and inspired.

Her visit coinciding with the trauma of the Texas atrocity has given her leadership a volume to NZs collective mana.

The frustration then as China manoeuvres into a geopolitically offensive stance in the South Pacific that America still refuses point blank to allow us to economically de-couple from China.

The steel tariffs Trump put on us could be removed immediately.

More direct access for Dairy and Meat and primary product.

A total removal on tariffs.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

There is the promise of a renewal of annual trade talks, but unless they deliver immediate decisions quickly, NZs looming economic depression will be steeper than it should, which puts us in an immediate position of vulnerability should China suddenly stop buying our milk powder.

NZ needs to urgently decouple economically from China, the only market that can match that replacement will be America, the only way to change that requires hearts and minds.

The Prime Minister’s visit has won that first phase.

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45 COMMENTS

  1. See ol’ Creepy was on one of the morning shows claiming we, “need work with China.”
    Thing is, there is no genuine working with China. You work under China. In other words, Key is saying, we need to drop ya pants, bend over, and hand out the jumbo jar of Vaseline. Problem is, later comes the Uyghur treatment.

    • Hey Bruce, (you’re not a Bayliss are you?) don’t bother to colour in all the patterns in the Political Art by Numbers. Leave us room to apply imagination as personally desired eh.

    • Not sure what China has done to us except keep us economically afloat since 2008.

      China does not impose on other countries. It only insists others butt the fuck out of their internal affairs, as any self-respecting country would

      • Yeah right Mark. The Nepalese, Indians, Taiwanese, and those like the Philippines and Vietnamese that have to watch as the China helps itself to islands and atolls in certain parts of the Pacific are just making a fuss over nothing.

      • Significantly large amounts of NZ companies are majority or significantly controlled by Chinese interests especially in the agricultural areas.

        Such as Silver Ferns Farms, PG Wrightson, Convita, NZ Wastemanagement etc

        If anything goes wrong, somehow NZ exports are left out of the border so it acts as significant Chinese soft power over NZ.

        In addition so many foreign assets sales have made NZer’s poorer and less in control of strategic assets which are being milked by overseas interests, this is not just a Chinese issue but a financial one, the difference with China is that they use economic control to control country policy a lot more than other countries.

        As for China helping NZ, NZ taxpayers now pay significant amounts of new NZ pensions to Chinese pensioners and their health care.

        Part of this is paying the woke to promote their race based agenda to divide people.

        • With regard to you comments on China I agree saveNZ. In my opinion Mark let’s his feelings about the US ( which are not without reason) cloud his judgment of the Chinese rulers.

  2. Obviously Martyn thinks it is a good idea to ‘couple’ with the world’s greatest most hated imperialist power. LOL!

  3. John Key also represented New Zealand well in the United States of America and Helen Clark represented New Zealand well in many countries.

    I don’t appreciate how Jacinda Ardern has been hyped up in the media within the past month. Just what good a third term Labour government the mainstream media think will do for New Zealand, I don’t know. I do know that Helen Clark was very tired throughout her third term and John Key’s third term was very tiring for his supportive and patient family. Jacinda Ardern is younger than they are and she is younger then her competition. She isn’t running out of steam physically but her politics in her two terms thus far have been a nightmare.

    • Sorry Daniel, but I was often embarrassed by John Key’s clumsiness. His 3-way handshake; his mangling of the English language, and his embarrassingly silly performance in his David Letterman interview.
      Ardern is a whole level above John Key.

      • In vino. Didn’t Key pay Letterman to be on his show ? Bit like the Markles getting to be on Time’s front cover? Seems to me that Key cosied up to Hollywood, bit like kids do.

      • That’s okay. I was never embarrassed by John Key but I never voted for him. I believed in the myth that was Helen, and in the reality of her – she was a machine and a half!!

      • In Vino. Talk about one eyed and one eared. Ardern replaces d’s for T’s more than any politician I’ve heard. She’s a lazy speaker and that’s the REALIDY of it. Of course if one performs well on David Letterman that is definitely something we should vote for, and if our politicians don’t perform on David Letterman’s show we shouldn’t vote for them. Ffs who gives a fuck.

    • You’re right that the politics of super-superficial really took off with Key. But I feel really disturbed by any idea that it is a good thing for Labour to have succeeded in out-Keying Key in the slick bullshit stakes. But in nothing of actual substance or import, which is almost axiomatic when you think about it.

    • A nightmare for you not many others who were neglected by John and his crony government. The problem with many NZers they only like incremental change and if you rock the boat too much they want to get rid of you and they start throwing their toys out of their cot.

      • You mean that actually acting according to principle, and doing right by the nation might hurt their re-election chances? And that is a good enough reason to abandon them?

        I actively opposed the Key government and put many hours of work into doing so. But much as I disliked Key, it wasn’t about him or some pointless team but about those annoying principles that seem to get in the way of meaningless ”winning”. The desire to have a government prepared to do right by the whole nation, not just themselves, their cronies and people like them (and the devil take the hindmost.)

        In other words vision, integrity and genuine caring and empathy from a government doing its job and not lost in a grotesque infatuation with its own image.

        But no, winning by out-Keying the smiling assassin from the psychopathic Goldman Sachs was what we got. Which led, unsurprisingly, more of the same in different team jerseys.

        So yeah, more fool me.

  4. Reasonably creepy pick of Joe with both! hands on the NZ PM.

    Bernie Sanders remains the best president the USA never had.

  5. To get a trade deal with the United States like the Aussies did, we need to become military allies like they are.
    They don’t give something for nothing,
    Why would they?
    We were the ones that banned their nuclear ships and scuttled ANZUS, yet still benefitted from a US run free trade world order.
    Now we need to strengthen our ties and stop being the bludgers of the South Pacific.
    Ditch the no nuclear ship policy, reform ANZUS and watch trade and security improve.
    Why aren’t we improving our military already?

      • Saint Jacinda has managed to offend the Chinese anyway.
        They choose when to take offense.
        If you want to be a complete vassal to China I suggest you move there and let us align with countries that value their freedom.
        China will use trade as a weapon when they choose- at the moment it suits them to play Australia against NZ in trade terms.
        We should diversify away from China pronto, being beholden to them for trade isn’t an “independent foreign policy”.
        Both Helen Clark and Xian Key led us to over dependency.

    • There was no FTA during ANZUS. There is no FTA between USA and the UK, and none between the USA and the EU (full of NATO members).

      Under Trump its NATO ally Canada got the free trade on Trump terms treatment (and the rules of NAFTA were already that the US did what it wanted – tariffs on imports and these used to subsidise the American competition and no chance of any review/challenge).

    • We are only between 5 and 6 million – less than half a decent city for many countries. No matter how much money we throw at defence (notice that right-wing phrase – ‘throw money at’?) we will never be able to repel a strong attacking force.

      • We need to be a full contributor to a strong alliance and able to monitor our waters.
        We don’t need a standing army of a million men.

    • Spot on KKC
      Aderns visit side show only.
      Achieved nothing.
      Just silly naive people who by coincidence only represent our country.
      Business people will and can achieve change Labour career politicians never will.
      Simply don’t know how.

  6. Yes. I agree with you. I’ll add that, to become one of the United States’ military allies at a precarious global time is potentially dangerous for a small country such as New Zealand.

  7. So is the colonialist regime content to see its Prime Minister humiliated and degraded in a very hands on way by the President of the United States?
    Of course it is.
    Would Xi Jinping behave in such a crude and insulting manner to another head of government?
    Of course he wouldn’t.

  8. ” She done us proud ”

    That doesn’t put a roof over many peoples heads , pay the exorbitant price of food by the two food barons , lift all children out of poverty , doing anything about the horrendous rents being imposed , the huge profits being siphoned off by the four banking cartels off the backs of average kiwis to overseas shareholders and making sure the billions they have promised in health including mental and financial support promised in their building back better budget actually gets to where its needed not dripped out year by year by the bureaucracy.

    • Bob referring to Fox News…..what a shock! The fact that Fox finds that relevant just sums them up. Do you honestly think Bob that anyone associated with recent gun control implementation would ge positive vibes out of Fox?

  9. Woke and Woke mistresses have created Auckland as being an Asian city from a decade ago.

    “Mayor Len Brown’s Auckland is predicted to have a majority Asian, largely Chinese, population by 2040, with the existing long standing European ethnic and cultural base becoming a minority. This means that a very large percentage of Auckland’s projected 2.1 million population will have a short working history in this country with low associated tax and Kiwisaver contributions, and a rapidly escalating number of older people moving onto New Zealand Superannuation with no contribution coming from their original home countries.”
    https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1110/S00572/grey-power-warns-of-impact-of-high-immigration-rates.htm

    How is that working out for Auckland? Been there lately it is no longer a nice place to be, especially in the city centre – ethnic gerrymandering from woke and neoliberals, does not make a vibrant city.

    Kate Hawkesby: Welcome to Auckland, city of crime and opportunists
    https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/early-edition/opinion/kate-hawkesby-welcome-to-auckland-city-of-crime-and-opportunists/?fbclid=IwAR29dV_fnImEPSnmRLxYZnXlfilh1J_XEzhBGfUIIcuZ3EPEaAkA8oQvyxk

    Now Jacinda is out trawling the world for more foreign student visas, so keep the process going in the Ponzi of living in NZ on Ponzi post grad degree that are worthless + (no income family members), low wages and high brain drain.

    This process gets NZ more foreign pensioners and low waged workers.

    It is not an ethnic issue, as workers who have little hope of higher wages under neoliberalism leave, a lack of retention of expert skills instead of opportunism and marketing which has become the “NZ” way to get ahead while achieving nothing, while those on benefits stay in NZ as OZ and anywhere else won’t support them like NZ.

    • Workers are quite happy to work in OZ with little hope of OZ giving them OZ citizenship – they want the money! Likewise Dubai, you work there, party there, but then obey their rules or leave immediately.

      NZ has gone for an opposite approach, low wages but with the promise of easy residency for the entire family, you don’t need real skills to come here or even income. A family comes on a support worker visa on low wages, then brings spouse, other children, grandparents. Before you know it, there’s another 6 member family on benefits and needing health care in NZ while the NZ expert nurses leave.

      Those who have good skills leave NZ, while those into crime or on benefits stay supported by our woke/neoliberal immigration policy backed up by the migrant protection tribunal.

      Literally the world’s terrorists, fringe groups, crims, mentally ill and so forth are not allowed to be deported from NZ or can spend 20 years living here fighting to stay.

      Thus we get more hopeless coming here (like the Mall terrorist who came on a student visa, lasted 1 month and then applied for protection in NZ, the woke NZ rules wouldn’t even let him leave NZ when he wanted to, that’s dedication to having terrorists and high needs in NZ!).

      Needs to urgently change to follow OZ rules.

  10. Imagine the outcry had Donald Trump put his hands on Jacinda Ardern like Biden did?
    He treated her as if she were a little girl.
    He belittled her yet many New Zealanders think it’s wonderful.

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