Game of Realms and Rare Earth: How Trump gets the Cook Islands

It may have been sometime during a voyeuristic rewatch of Zelinsky’s Oval Office tag team beat-down when Trump kept referring to Rare Earth minerals as “Raw Earth”, or it may have been watching Trump’s State of the Nation address to a polarised Congress when he narrowed his eyes when speaking of acquiring Greenland and reiterated in a predatory sotto voce that he was somehow going to get it, or it may have been sometime rewatching Winston Peters being emasculated in an interview having to explain how he went to Beijing to tell the Chinese that the Cook Islands are part of New Zealand even though the Cooks have signed a comprehensive partnership agreement with China that they refused to tell New Zealand about and had to be first told by the Chinese what was in it – it was somewhere within or between these high level humiliations that it occurred to me what might transpire with the Cook Islands and their reputedly vast trove of seabed metals.

The Cook Islands government’s ambitions and the terrible triangulation of New Zealand’s impotence, China’s cheque book diplomacy and Trump’s avarice leads to the heart of Polynesia sheltering under an American umbrella, allowing the Americans to plunder the undersea resources. Let me explain.

Cooks Prime Minister Mark Brown has been seeking increased international recognition for the Cook Islands for some time now. He wanted their own passports – Wellington said no. It seems to me it was not merely a passport he was wanting but their own separate citizenship (after all other Realm systems like the UK offer passports to their associates like the Isle of Man without having a separate citizenship). He wanted the USA to recognise their sovereign independence and Biden did that in 2023 without any recognition of what Winston Peters had excruciatingly described to the Chinese is the Cooks’ “Realm” status in relation to New Zealand. In a previous column I explained how my Official Information Act requests from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) documented a lot of correspondence between MFAT and the US Embassy in Wellington in the months leading up to that White House ceremony, but it was all heavily redacted so we can never know what the multiple points of concern were. All we do know is the result – the USA recognised the Cooks (and also Niue) as being independent sovereign nations with no reference to New Zealand or the vaunted “Realm” whatsoever in that declaration. Supposedly this was to allow fisheries and maritime funding from the US which Congress would not authorise to non-independent nations. However, the effect of that US government recognition is that the Cooks are fully independent of New Zealand as far as the US is concerned as of 2023.

The Chinese foray was furtive in the extreme. Where once MFAT would have been relied upon to provide support for such a far-reaching agreement Wellington was totally blind-sided. The Cooks refused to discuss anything with New Zealand at all – before or after! Does that sound like an operational “Realm”? It is what a completely independent country would do. The three MoU’s were also hidden until after the main agreement was released. It appears as though Brown had sold their cow in Harbin for three magic beans.

The fact that Prime Minister Brown and his government survived popular protest and an Opposition motion of no confidence put after his return from China means their course is unaltered and is locking into China – despite the earlier advance towards the US. All of which is an advance away from New Zealand. It would seem – at least under the Brown premiership – that the Realm and all those Prime Ministerial exchanges of letters – is one big fat dead letter.

If we look at Trump’s real estate acquisition mentality towards Greenland and the Panama Canal we gain some insight. If we look at his (much more rational and realistic) fixation with Rare Earth acquisition we gain perhaps a complete picture of what might eventuate in the Cook Islands. Let me attempt to paint the picture.

The US has a similar style of “Realm” relationship with three Micronesian states in the same way that New Zealand does with three Polynesian states (Cook Islands and Niue are self-governing, whereas Tokelau is still a form of dependency). The US version goes further than NZ – it affords them UN recognition, their own citizenship etc, but they have visa-free entry and work rights etc. in the US. The US has extensive defence rights over these territories. But officially no foreign affairs role. The agreement is termed a compact of free association. Their template is thus similar to NZ’s Realm and free association in many ways except the US compacts are time limited and subject to renewal with explicit budget funding through the period. Interestingly the US deal acknowledges a nuclear free zone in the area.

Given the strategic importance of Rare Earth, given the strategic importance of the Cook Islands, given the ambitions of the Cook Islands PM and the ambitions of the current American President, and given the aggressive intrusion of China and given the feeble ineptness of New Zealand… what might the result be?

One scenario appears stronger than everything else: a “free association” compact between the Cook Islands and the US to thwart China.

A US-Cook Islands free association compact could deliver to the Cooks their own citizenship and passport, a nominally independent foreign affairs including full UN membership, solid gold defence, guaranteed long term budget support, access and visa-free entry to the US. The dollar return to the Cooks for US exclusive exploitation of seabed Rare Earth minerals could be profound. New Zealand can deliver none of that. And they get to still be nuclear free (it is the Treaty of Rarotonga after all!).

Could Winston Peters, the near octogenerian Richilieu of New Zealand, and his pro-American populism resist such a scenario? If the choice is China or America it seems a foregone conclusion. If confronted (and that is what happens in the White House these days, there’s nothing subtle about Pax Trumpamericana) Winston would probably want a tripartite deal where both NZ and the US can freely associate with the Cooks, but that won’t happen – it will be Trump or bust. In this instance with Biden having declared the Cooks a free agent Winston would have to grit his teeth and concede. The Cook Islands wouldn’t be US territory, but its seabed will be – that is the price.

How will China react? Beijing having their best efforts ripped up will produce some response. The PLA-N naval task force sallying down the Tasman shows they mean business. But what could they do specifically to prevent or undermine a free association compact – fuck all. China’s dream of a base in the middle of Polynesia will be terminated on the seismograph scribbling of Trump’s signature.