PM Jacinda Ardern’s message to President Joe Biden before US trip: Get on board with free trade
Amid the great struggle for power in the Indo-Pacific, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has reaffirmed what New Zealand thinks the United States needs to be. Not a greater security partner in a region that’s experiencing “assertiveness and aggression”, but a better economic one.
It’s a message Ardern has issued to the Biden administration before. But, in a speech to the US Business Summit in Auckland on Monday, and weeks before she travels to the US, it was entirely unambiguious: Get on board with free trade because, China has.
And the US offer has so far fallen short of expectations.
Ardern, in the speech, committed New Zealand to the recently announced and sparsely detailed US “Indo-Pacific Economic Framework” – which amounts to something of a US-led free trade deal, just without the free trade, for a region that already has such a deal.
That gagging sound you hear is Jacinda reading the neoliberal Mfat wishlist she was forced to regurgitate at the end of APEC last yearand in her message to Joe Biden this week!
The irony of having to lecture America on its Milton Friedman Cult of free markets would be hilarious if it didn’t enslave us to a Washington Consensus none of us consented to!
The Democrats have realised how far their free market dogma has collided with the aspirations of a working class who keep going backwards.
Trump understood that dynamic and that’s why the TPPA was dumped.
With the Democrats about to be destroyed in the mid terms because of the lack of economic traction vs culture war ammunition they keep handing to the Republicans, there is no fucking way they are opening their markets up to the things we are good at.
The last unchallenged bastion of NZ neoliberalism is the free trade zeal that stops nationalization of economic sovereignty. Jacinda is a globalist who supports transnational labour chains which exploit workers and locks us into corporate subservience.
This pandemic has shocked neoliberal supply chains and is a precursor to the constant state of external shocks that the climate crisis will generate.
Now is a time for economic self sufficiency NOT corporate globalism!
Begging America to give us access to their markets to wean us off our economic subservience to China is apparently preferable to building Fortress Aotearoa.
The geopolitical shock waves are constant now, the current political spectrum won’t be able to contain the coming storm no matter how much we beg America.
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People have missed a trick here. We have a 10B hole in our economy due to no tourism and ESL tertiary education. These industries will take 36 months to get back up to full stream. Our Glorious Leader (sorry Poor Man’s Gordon Brown) has finally realized at some stage we have to pay the ‘pissed against a wall cash’ back and are seeing some rather large cash holes developing.
This pleading is so we have more markets as the risks with China increase. And now we have a tapering off of demand from China as their lockdown madness shows no signs of abating.
An armada of Black Swans are at our doorstep.
as far as it goes do we need or want vast numbers of backpackers….do they really contribute to the economy outside tourism businesses.
the respect for our education system id declining as we go with bums on seats and guaranteed degrees.. it’s just a path to residency…if I were a rich chinese or indian I’d avoid our degree mills like the plague.
The average hospitality wage is below the average wage needed to maintain government services so the more hospitality we do, the poorer New Zealand gets. NZ has to increase base load power generation so that NZ can grow on the digital realm.
Frank is a wage subsidy pissing cash against a wall? I would think latest export numbers don’t show a tapering off with China. There are certainly delays in the Shanghai port. You sounds like dildo baggins and his mysterious fiscal hole.
All this shit about government debt. Lets not spend anything and wonder why the infrastructure is not their or falling apart.
Snigger. So the Australian owned banks, the warehouse and LOL, Foodstuffs needed the wage subsidy did they. Yes some gave it back but not all.
We are spending more than we ever have – Poor man’s Gordon Brown put paid to that. It’s how we are spending. We are creating voluntary digital vaccine passports. FMD covid is past its pandemic phase and is now endemic. We can’t afford cancer drugs but we can afford a new digital vaccine passport.
Its the equivalent of a household being unable to afford the power but buying KFC for dinner. LOL fucking LOL.
They could have used a more nuanced level of lockdowns so businesses could have continued trading, thus not needing any govt support.
Instead they used a sledgehammer to small businesses (thinking butchers, green grocers etc) while giving the two supermarket chains ( btw I thought you guys hated them?) a carte blanche ability to print money.
How could businesses pay their staff if they couldn’t trade? So let’s let go of the “well businesses we’re happy to take govt assistance” theory right now, most weren’t but had no choice.
Actually a 1B hole due to tourism if I remember the numbers in the media correctly. What this tells us is that a huge portion of our tourism companies are not owned by kiwis and the profits go back overseas.
Trust me it’s much more than that when you factor in all the related industries.
Most jobs on minimum wages with high carbon and ecological footprint and at the mercy of world events like pandemics – Yeha
Bollocks gagging, she’s a fully paid up disciple of the unflushable turd, George W’s little spoon and the second most successful Tory prime minister after Mrs T…
Jacinda is a Blairite to her absolute core! As such, free trade, globalisation, neoliberalism and most of all endlessly lying to the electorate are fundamental to her understanding of who she is and what she wants to achieve.
FUQ – who plays the role of that most Machiavellian of politicians in Jacinda’s Govt, ie who is our Peter Mandelson? It’s certainly not Trevor “Jackboot” Mallard! Although I suspect he believes he just might be.
Good call Martyn
The whole Free Trade schtick was a Clintoneque experiment that got the Chinese into the WTO where they could use and abuse its principles for their own benefit. (Clinton reportedly received mysterious campaign contributions from Asia) Trump reset US trade policy and Biden has maintained it, not that you’d hear that being said aloud in DC. But just as you said, it’s true.
What tin-pot little governments like we have in New Zealand need to realize is that international diplomacy is a multidimensional game. You want to trade with the USA? Then you have to rejoin ANZUS and pony up with a credible defence commitment.
‘Nationalism’ trumps liberalism just ask Donald Trump. The powerful force of nationalism, the idea that humans form distinct tribes based on a common language, culture, ethnicity, and self-awareness, and that such groups ought to be able to govern themselves, has shaped the history of the past 500 years in ways that many people still do not fully appreciate. What does nationalism look like in Aotearoa? What brings us together as New Zealanders? The importance of understanding the power of nationalism is even greater today.
It was nationalism—specifically, a desire to regain lost national autonomy—that drove the British decision to leave the European Union, even though the movement’s leaders (and I use that term advisedly) cannot figure out how to do it and departure is likely to make most Britons poorer and could lead to the eventual dissolution of the entire United Kingdom.
Donald Trump rode nationalist nostalgia for an imagined past (“Make America Great Again”) to the White House in 2016, and it forms the basis for the protectionist and anti-immigrant policies that keep his political base loyal now. Nationalism is central to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambitious efforts to make China a world leader, and it is the common thread uniting right-wing European politicians in France, Austria, Italy, Hungary, and Poland. Everywhere one looks, in fact, one sees nationalism at work in today’s world. What does nationalism look like in the 21st century in Aotearoa?
It doesn’t look like much with non-citizens able to vote in “our” elections.
“The Democrats have realised how far their free market dogma has collided with the aspirations of a working class who keep going backwards.”
Sadly Labour and Greens still do not understand this. Nor do they realise the rot to the middle class – in fact do everything to hide it from statistics.
Nor do Woke Wellington & twitter.policy woke understand the treaty – which prioritised ‘New Zealanders’ equality not just Maori .
It is also clear that there is zero mandate for NOT non New Zealanders to exploit and be given New Zealand assets or to conveniently give over a million people New Zealand permanent residency and citizenship status to get around the treaty .
Te Tiriti and democracy: The principle of equal representation
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ideasroom/te-tiriti-and-democracy-part-5
Many Maori do not support woke segregation, woke spritulism and anti science.
Elizabeth Rata: The Decolonisation of Education in New Zealand
https://democracyproject.nz/2022/04/22/elizabeth-rata-the-decolonisation-of-education-in-new-zealand/
Worldwide woke ‘elites’ are destroying democracy.
Journalism is now dominated by highly educated elites who crusade about racial matters in order to generate outrage while protecting their own economic interests, says a US writer.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018837801/fears-woke-media-is-undermining-democracy
Save NZ ‘Many Maori do not support woke segregation, woke spiritualism and anti science.
Elizabeth Rata: The Decolonization of Education in New Zealand’ Elizabeth Rata has her critics as a radical academic who has been described as the female Don Brash.
Elizabeth Rata on the politics of knowledge in education, represents a widespread, though covert, influence within the global academy of an imperialist form of philosophical universalism which has particular significance for Aotearoa New Zealand due to her vocal opposition to Kaupapa Māori education and Māori politics more generally. Critical analysis shows that Rata’s scholarship is based on misconceptions of several key terms and concepts, which inexorably lead to inadequate arguments and invalid conclusions, and undermine the cogency of her claims about the ‘dangers’ of Kaupapa Māori education.
Elizabeth Rata is also a contributor to the NZCPR site a far-right-think tank that is obsessed with anything to enhance Maori. Elizabeth Rata is intellectually dishonest when formulating her thesis she misrepresents the nature of tikanga and rangatiratanga and displays an impressive ability to think in binary. Elizabeth Rata declines to discuss her ethnicity and seems unaware of the confusion her Māori surname causes for those who do not know her personal history.
she is reported as saying her background has no relevance to her scholarship, but many Maori would respond by saying this attitude demonstrates her ignorance or refusal of Māori perspectives on and in her work, despite her life amongst Māori people, in the city with the world’s largest Māori and Pacific population. This refusal of Māori perspectives pervades Rata’ thinking and is at odds with any claim to speak with authority on Māori education or politics. Elizabeth Rata routinely misrepresents the work of others, who is wrongly cited by Rata as advocating for ‘Māori science’
Basically Save NZ she a product of colonization ‘internalizing hatred’ and frankly I wouldn’t take you or her seriously when discussing the national interest of our country.
Kids don’t know that there are 60 seconds in a minute anymore and NZ is falling in the bottom percent in maths and science internationally now with the neoliberal turned woke educational perspective.
In spite of all the identity politics and a Labour/Greens led government Maori and the poor seem to be doing worse, in fact when analysing any funding, money for the poor seems to be hijacked into identity talkfests of elite intellectuals who are making everyones lives worse.
Woke spend a fortune on signs for Te Reo but apparently couldn’t muster up decent housing for all as the emergency waiting list and state house waiting list is getting longer.
Pretty sure most kids are better off with a state house not a Te REo sign and new premise upgrades for woke elites working for government.
‘Woke spend a fortune on signs for Te Reo but apparently couldn’t muster up decent housing for all as the emergency waiting list and state house waiting list is getting longer’ Utter garbage SaveNZ,
New Zealand’s housing crisis is worsening because the cost of housing. Home-ownership has been a national obsession ever since Pakeha, a people notoriously obsessed with claiming title to piles of bricks, when first colonizing Aotearoa. Emigrants left draughty terraced homes for the “Kiwi dream” of a “quarter-acre block”. That fantasy has become increasingly difficult to realize. The average home in Auckland, the commercial capital, now costs NZ$1.4m ($935,000), 35 times the median income.
Making false claims that Te Reo Signs in Maori brought about the housing crisis in Aotearoa for Maori children and succeeding generations is why you nor the neo-con academic Elizabeth Rata whom you quote religiously need to be resign to the trash can.
I’m not saying Te Reo is causing the housing crisis I’m saying Kāinga Ora renovating their premises and hundreds of thousands on signs is part of the problem of what the housing ministry elite are spending their money on while people are homeless.
Revealed: Kāinga Ora spent over $24m of taxpayer money in four years on its own office renovations
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/03/revealed-kainga-ora-spent-over-24m-of-taxpayer-money-in-four-years-on-its-own-office-renovations.html
The biggest spend ups were in the last financial year:
$230,661 went on signs
$829,797 on a complete fit-out and renovation in Christchurch
$5.5 million for a complete fit-out of the Newmarket offices
$12 million on a total renovation of its Wellington headquarters.
Is it official policy that Labour is more interested in propping up NZ big business (now mostly owned by overseas entities) instead of security in the region?
Big Wow on how neoliberalism has got so far in NZ.
Are they going to sell MP seats for $100k donations to ‘more valuable’ ethnic donors too like the Natz?
Elizabeth Rata’s scholarship appeals to a particular section of the local elite by endorsing its own prejudices and re-inscribing those prejudices as ‘rational’. She also manipulates a form of Marxist care for the underprivileged so that it becomes—once more—a form of assimilationism, more distinctive of 19th century liberalism than of contemporary recognition of the claims of the Other. By combining the two—Marxism and elitism—she appears to be both caring and supportive of the status quo. What we have is, in effect, a circular format: Rata writes for a certain sector of public opinion, held by powerful people who are invested, for whatever reason, in disparagement of practices or ideas that value ways of being and knowing outside the formal Western tradition. That specific group is very receptive to her ideas and reinforces them, as her ideas in effect reinforce their own.
The popularity of Rata’s scholarship in the media may be compared to the case of the documentary New Zealand: Skeletons in the Cupboard that TVNZ recently removed from its website. This case invoked the knowledge debate, starting with a ‘tweet from a concerned viewer’ asking ‘why the network was featuring pseudoscience in the “documentary and factual” section of its online offerings’ (Radio New Zealand, 19 August 2018, unpaginated). The concern is not the existence of such unfounded theories, but the appetite within our society for this kind of material.
Elizabeth Rata’s key binary is between ‘disciplinary knowledge’ vs. ‘social knowledge’ but deploying these terms as two natural, mutually exclusive categories creates a reified binary, on which the rest of her argument is like the proverbial house of cards. She misses the point that ALL knowledge is human knowledge, and overlooks interesting questions about the intersection between social and disciplinary knowledges, such as how social knowledge becomes disciplinary knowledge, in her quest to build a wall between the two. Rata’s reified binary makes a flimsy epistemological foundation underpinning her entire argument, which explains why she reaches such idiosyncratic conclusions about Māori education. Basically she a charlatan.
What about
Te Tiriti and democracy: The principle of equal representation
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ideasroom/te-tiriti-and-democracy-part-5
The treaty seems to advocate, one NZ person one NZ vote – not what the woke elites want.
Also nothing supporting selling off NZ water, sand, forests, assets to other nationals that the woke don’t seem that concerned about.
Trump dumping the TPPA was a good result for NZ.
Very little trade benefits at the expense of an increase in corporate powers.
indeed only a traitor or complete moron could sign a deal that allows foreign corporations to sue an elected govt for policy the corp doesn’t like….I mean WTF? just WTF?
I opposed and marched against the tppa in 2015/2016.
I reluctantly support it now because investor state disputes are gone and with over 20% of our trade and economic activity being with a bipolar and aggressive china we are at risk and anything that counters Chinese economic dominance in this region and gives us more options is good.
There will come a day very very soon almost any day now, when NZ will no longer be able to play both sides on china and China will heavily sanction out trade which will decimate NZ unless we have other baskets.
The tppa was never supposed to be this big in the first place it was supposed to be between NZ and three other countries in 2004 and now it’s a full on pacific rim trade deal.
If America and the wider pacific rim doesn’t trade with the Pacific region china absolutely will and it’s restrictions will terrify regional govts from saying boo against China.
Meanwhile nations with FTA’s with USA routinely criticize and bash the Yanks case in point Canadian Prime minister Chretian constantly attacking Bush over Iraq.
Trump didn’t understand the tppa either.
Trump opposed the TPPA because he saw some social media people freaking over it and cos Bernie was popular because of his opposition to it. As Bernie Sanders said “we both oppose it but unlike him I actually know what the tppa is”
I don’t like the TPPA but its a lot more preferable to have multiple baskets and income streams than having everything with China who could shut off trade at any moment and cripple NZ.
There are 3 economic region we are in the Asian region, if Putin prevails in Ukraine which is becoming evidently daily that he will (Ruble up) and China rises peacefully continues, putting aside the Rand report-(War with China before 2025) the USA hegemony will be weaken significantly and we will have a multipolar world. What side do you believe is in our country interest?