Surprise White House visit for Key

BY TRACY WATKINS

Prime Minister John Key will make a surprise visit to the White House on his first official visit to Washington.

Mr Key has been unexpectedly shoe-horned in for a meeting with American Vice-President Joe Biden at the White House tonight New Zealand time.

The meeting takes place on the sidelines of US President Barack Obama's nuclear security summit in Washington this week, and is an important opportunity for Mr Key to press home New Zealand's case for free trade with the United States as talks get under way.

Mr Key's meeting with Vice-President Biden was a "pretty special opportunity" which he will use to push New Zealand's trade interests, Acting Prime Minister Bill English says.

"That's been an opportunity that's come up just in the last few days and John Key is taking (it) because it's a pretty special opportunity to push the trade negotiations that have just begun with the US," Mr English said on Newstalk ZB this morning.

Talks started last month in Melbourne on a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which would expand the previously negotiated P4 trade agreement between New Zealand, Brunei, Chile and Singapore to include the US, Australia, Peru and Vietnam.

A group of 30 US senators responded by sending a letter to US Trade Representative Ron Kirk critical of Fonterra and accusing New Zealand's dairy industry of "anti-competitive practices".

Idaho senators Mike Crapo and Jim Risch led 28 others in urging "very careful attention to dairy trade concerns" and said New Zealand's dairy industry wielded extensive control over world prices.

Mr English said Mr Key would use his meetings to outline New Zealand's position.

"The practical negotiations have just got started and of course negotiating any trade deal with the US is going to be a complex job requiring persistence so the Prime Minister's taking the opportunity to push our case every chance he can."

Mr English did not think the senators' letter was "that relevant" to trade talks.

"In our view the US government has a realistic view of Fonterra as an organisation that has to compete successfully in global dairy markets and the fact that it is done reasonably well just means that it's a good New Zealand organisation, not that it has any particular protection from the Government."

Trade Minister Tim Groser previously said the senators were influential but it was "palpable nonsense" to say Fonterra created an unfair market because it competed internationally like every other company.

"It's a very, very politicised argument, trying to suggest that somehow New Zealand doesn't play it fair when any person who looked at it objectively would reach exactly the opposite conclusion," he said.

But the biggest fillip to New Zealand's trade push would be a formal White House meeting with Mr Obama, something which has so far failed to eventuate despite months of to-ing and fro-ing by NZ and US officials over a possible date. A June meeting looks likely, though that has not yet been confirmed.

However, Mr Key expects to get an opportunity to talk trade with Mr Obama at some stage during the two-day summit, which is unprecedented in recent US history.

The 40-strong gathering of world leaders is the biggest hosted by an American leader since the formation of the United Nations in 1945.

The summit will focus on solutions to the rising threat of nuclear terrorism and follows Mr Obama's recent moves to reduce America's nuclear weapons arsenal.

But it also signals a significant milestone in US-NZ relations – New Zealand's anti-nuclear stance caused a decades-old rift that has only healed in recent years.

While a hangover remains in the form of military restrictions, many have been relaxed recently and now New Zealand's anti-nuclear stance is the reason for Mr Key's first visit to Washington. He is among a select group invited by Mr Obama to drive the anti-nuclear message.

But there was shock on the eve of the meeting at news Polish President Lech Kaczynski and many of the ruling elite were killed in a plane crash.

Acting Prime Minister Bill English sent New Zealand's condolences yesterday.

Mr Key's unexpected meeting forced him to leave for Washington early; he flies in from San Francisco, where he has been holidaying, and is also scheduled to meet US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Trade is likely to figure prominently in both sets of talks now that formal talks toward a trans-Pacific trade agreement are under way.

The agreement would ease US trade barriers for New Zealand exporters – but the talks are barely off the ground and already striking stiff opposition from US dairy farmers, who accuse Fonterra of being too dominant in world markets.

Meanwhile, New Zealand drug-buying agency Pharmac has been named in a US government report as a major barrier, suggesting that significant concessions will be sought.

New Zealand has been courting businesses and constituencies that would benefit from the trade deal, in an attempt to strengthen our arm.

Many of the key players will be at a NZ US Council dinner attended by Mr Key. He will bestow an honorary Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit on NZ US Council president John Mullen, an American, at the function.

- with NZPA

- © Fairfax NZ News