Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and US President Donald Trump. Photo / Supplied
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and US President Donald Trump. Photo / Supplied
Last year Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's speech to the United Nations was considered the polar opposite to United States President Donald Trump's, and this year was no different.
There were even a few remarks that could be seen as indirect jabs at each other, though Ardern was diplomatic when quizzedabout them afterwards.
Trump's address offered few surprises, hailing protectionism and patriotism, criticising China and Iran, and warning about the perils of socialism and mass immigration.
"Wise leaders put the good of their own people and their own country first. The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots," Trump told the UN General Assembly yesterday.
"If you want freedom, take pride in your country ... If you want peace, love your nation."
It was a pretty dry affair as Trump stuck to the script, only eliciting a reaction from the assembly audience - a light giggle - when he referred to the US as "by far the world's more powerful nation".
More unexpected was his attack on social media giants and their control over what people see and read.
The US has not signed up to the Christchurch Call to Action, the Ardern-led commitment for countries and tech companies to tackle terrorist and violent extremist content online.
But Ardern didn't take Trump's comments as a rebuke of the call.
"I don't want to draw assumptions about what that may have in particular been a reference to," Ardern told reporters afterwards.
Ardern's speech was also unsurprising in how it talked up the need for multilateralism and how one nation alone would never effectively tackle climate change.
What was new was talk of a trade agreement she is expected to announce tomorrow to eliminate tariffs on climate change-related goods, services and technology and cut fossil fuel subsidies.
Not many countries have signed up so far, and Ardern used her speech to ask more countries to support it.
She also provoked some laughter with references to hobbits and sheep, but the tone was mainly solemn as it focused on March 15 and the way it had changed New Zealand.
The experience had obliged her to tackle social media harm, something that unilateral action from New Zealand would not dent.
Her speech included a request for social media users to think about how their online posts and tweets could impact a child, woman, person of faith or someone from the rainbow community.
That could have been directed at one particular Twitter user, but Ardern said later that Trump wasn't her only target.
"That idea that actually we're living in a borderless environment applies not just to politicians. There are a number of people who hold positions of power, role models, they're seen as persuasive influences.
"In an increasingly borderless world, that comes with a responsibility on all of us."
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had a formal meeting with US President Donald Trump in New York on Tuesday. Photo / Supplied
Not directing anything at Trump that could be seen in a negative light is a diplomatic dance that Ardern is familiar with, though she has previously called him out when he told Congresswomen to go back to the."crime-infested places from which they came".
There was one aspect of Trump's speech that would not have seemed out of place in Ardern's.
Trump called for women in society to feel safe.
Last year Ardern received spontaneous applause from the UN assembly when she said "MeToo must become WeToo", but with the Labour Party's recent mishandling of a sexual assault complaint, that was a message that was conspicuously absent this year.
