Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says New Zealand would “discourage” Donald Trump from resuming nuclear weapons testing and says he’ll raise the issue with the US President in “due course”.
His comments come on the first official day of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) leaders’ summit on Friday, during which he also briefly caught up with Chinese President Xi Jinping and met the new Japanese Prime Minister.
It’s also just two days after Luxon and Trump met in-person for the first time, a one-on-one that ended with glowing remarks by the American leader of New Zealand and its Prime Minister.
Trump said on Friday it was a “great honour” to meet Luxon and other leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit this week.
While in Busan, South Korea for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of Apec, Trump posted on social media that the US had more nuclear weapons than any other country.
“Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years. Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.”
Asked by the Herald for New Zealand’s position on Trump’s plans, Luxon responded: “That’s something we would discourage.
“We are a very proud anti-nuclear country. We are a signatory to the test ban treaty, and, frankly, I think there are other ways you can test nuclear weapons than having to actually fire them off.”
He said that is a message he would send the US President “in due course”.
“It might well be something we’d discuss. But you know, our position’s pretty clear. There’s been a 50-year programme of denuclearisation around the world. We don’t want to see a nuclear arms race and there’s other ways through computer modelling that you can test.”
Luxon didn’t know why Trump may have suddenly decided to resume testing, something the United States hasn’t done since 1992. China and Russia also haven’t conducted any known nuclear weapon tests for decades.
US reports say the White House hasn’t clarified the nature of the tests that Trump wants to occur. Trump’s post said he wanted to test on an “equal basis” with other countries, though the last test was by North Korea in 2017.
The United States in 1996 signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which prohibits nuclear test explosions for either military or civilian purposes. However, that hasn’t entered into force due to it not being ratified by some signatories, including the US.
New Zealand has a long-standing opposition to nuclear weapons, which is well-known internationally. It includes a ban on nuclear-powered or armed ships entering New Zealand waters, which strained relations with the US in the 1980s.
The Apec leaders’ summit officially began on Friday, with the attending representatives gathering for economic discussions in the morning.
Among the attendees was China’s President Xi Jinping, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Canada’s Mark Carney, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and new Japanese head Sanae Takaichi.
Luxon spoke with several, including Bessent and Takaichi, with whom he is interested in building a relationship and rapport. He described her as “warmly received”.
“She was very excited to meet me and me her as she’s only been in the job 10 days,” he said.
“We both spoke about the progress we have been making in defence and security with Japan, and obviously the trade pieces.”
He said all attending nations faced domestic economic challenges. Globally, there was “huge unity around [needing] to come together, work together, reinforce and reaffirm the rules-based trading system”.
Luxon said he raised in the meeting the potential of Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) countries and European Union countries working together.
That is something he has been pushing since Trump’s tariffs were announced earlier this year. A meeting of the two blocs is set down for later in the year.
On Friday night, at a dinner for the leaders, Luxon also spoke with Xi for several minutes.
He last met with the Chinese President in Beijing in June and saw China’s Premier Li Qiang in Malaysia this week.
The Prime Minister also met on Friday with the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
In opening remarks at the bilateral, Luxon spoke of his trip back in January to the United Arab of Emirates (UAE), during which he observed the signing of the two countries’ Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (Cepa).
Prior to it coming into force, two-way trade between UAE and New Zealand was worth about $1.5 billion. New Zealand’s largest export product is dairy, followed by milk preparations, pasta and baking products, and then mechanical machinery.
Luxon had time with Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, who has been in power since 1967, and Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto.
The pair spoke about where “there’s more opportunity that we haven’t fully exploited” in the relationship, including in education and food security, Luxon said.
Indonesia is the one of only a few Southeast Asian nations that Luxon has yet to personally visit. He has been wanting to, but the two countries have been unable to make schedules work.
Prabowo said at the start of the meeting that domestic issues in Indonesia led to a Luxon visit being cancelled earlier this year.
“We are determined either he’d come to New Zealand or I’ll get to Indonesia,” Luxon said. “I am very confident it’ll happen before the end of the term.”
Jamie Ensor is a senior political reporter for NZ Herald travelling with the Prime Minister in Asia this week.