Very early this morning, the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern met with US President Joe Biden. The meeting went longer than it should, it went over time and it was warm and friendly. Is that enough for you? 

On the agenda, of course, was trade and the CPTPP, there was global security, the Indo-Pacific economic framework.

They talked climate change, the Ukraine and various things and of course, the CPTPP has been a focus for New Zealand and a discussion between New Zealand and the US for quite a while.

It is unlikely we'll probably ever get a free trade agreement with the States so the CPTPP really is our best bet.  President Trump pulled the US out of the agreement in 2017, so it's very much back on the cards.

This wasn't going to be a meeting that was going to produce a whole lot of accountables.

You know, the Prime Minister said that we're not going to be announcing any new initiatives. It was made very clear before the meeting so that our expectations were kept in check; we weren't to expect any great announcements.

So was it worth it this trip that the Prime Minister has just undertaken to the United States? I would say yes, because the more you hear from politicians we understand the importance of face-to-face talks and it has been a long time since we visited, seven years or so.  Sir John Key made the point in the last week about the importance of having that personal relationship with the US. 

If it benefits New Zealand, if it benefits the tourism industry which has been decimated over the last two years, then surely that on its own makes this trip worth it.

We're this amazing little country at the bottom of the world. You can't actually just pop there for the weekend if you're coming from the States. You need a bit of time to plan, you need to put the seed into people minds.

Yeah, come back, we're open. Come back and enjoy this amazing country and I think she did a very good job in achieving that. So, are you impressed with what the Prime Minister has achieved?