The United States and us - still just good friends

The stage is set for more "normal" relations to resume between New Zealand and the United States, after Helen Clark's two-day visit to Washington. Political editor
JOHN ARMSTRONG reports.

Just hours before Helen Clark flew into Washington's Dulles Airport late on Monday night, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer was describing New Zealand as an "ally". Oops. As one senior Bush Administration official confirmed later, Fleischer won't be making that mistake again. Fleischer should have used the "f" word - "friends". As in "very, very, very close friends" - the apt definition of the Washington-Wellington relationship offered by Secretary of State Colin Powell after lunching with Clark the following day.

But not allies.

Why not? Surely, fighting alongside the United States in Afghanistan provides automatic qualification for ally status. Surely, New Zealand's anti-nuclear policy has been around long enough to subside as an obstacle to normalising relations, particularly in the post-Cold war era.

Not so, according to Washington, for two reasons. First, the new Republican Administration, which came to power 14 months ago, contains strong-willed and unforgiving personalities still smarting from the policy's introduction 18 years ago.

Second, the terrorist atrocities of September 11 are viewed by those players as a brutal reminder that the US is a global power. The globe must be policed. And top brass at the Pentagon refuse to allow other countries to impose restrictions on how they deploy their warships, including nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

"The problem is nuclear propulsion. It's propulsion, it's propulsion ... ," declared one high-ranking official, on condition he would not be named.

Such thinking means retention of the ban on joint military exercises, for example, even though it is absurd, given New Zealand troops are fighting alongside American ones.

Resolving that inconsistency was "for another day", said the Prime Minister after her Oval Office meeting with the President on Tuesday.

But there seems to be little evidence of any great willingness on either side to indulge in the kind of lateral thinking which, for example, might see a harmless US Coastguard vessel calling into a New Zealand port to break the deadlock. That solution, promoted by US Ambassador Charles "Butch" Swindells, appears to be stillborn.

Clark's answer is to downplay the problem as being of the same magnitude as New Zealand's long-running argument with Japan about whaling.

It was her way of saying things really are normal and the disagreement is typical of the ones all friendly countries have with one another. Hardly.

What has tipped the scales towards more normal relations in Washington minds has been what Bush has called her "immediate and robust" response to September 11. That culminated in this week's West Wing rendezvous, which cleared the nuclear haze and allowed each side to "understand" the other's point of view.

Clark is hugely respected by soldier-turned-politician Powell for the breadth and vigour of her intellect. His resurgent influence on Bush's thinking helped her to get her foot in the White House door and establish a similar rapport with the President.

One American official present at the Oval Office meeting spoke glowingly of the atmospherics, saying it was not a case of two leaders simply reciting briefs written by their staff months earlier. "These were two very bright people knocking the ball back and forth across the table. When one side made a point about their domestic interest, the other heard them clearly. There were no euphemisms."

Bush, who gave Clark an impromptu tour of his office and its paintings, kicked things off by chatting about this Monday's Easter Egg Hunt for his staff's children on the White House lawns. Things quickly got serious.

Among a host of items, their 50-minute session covered progress in the "war on terrorism" and New Zealand's commitment to Operation Enduring Freedom. Bush would have been pleased to hear Clark say she is willing to extend New Zealand's military contribution beyond Afghanistan's borders if fleeing al Qaeda terrorists set up bases in other countries.

Clark, however, is shunning any Bush adventure to settle old scores with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. She was told none is planned at present.

Clark was pleased that Bush accepted the flip-side of the anti-terrorism campaign - a war on poverty and alleviating the conditions which breed terrorism, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

She was also pleasantly surprised by Bush, saying the stereotype of him portrayed in the media is just plain wrong. "George Bush is smart. George Bush in person is a very witty man. He engages in quick-fire conversation. He has strong views."

In turn, Clark won laurels as a straight-talker in a land where people like to come straight to the point.

During their discussions, she and the President also canvassed co-operation on trade matters through Apec and the World Trade Organisation, including prospects for a US-New Zealand free trade agreement, and had a frank discussion on recently imposed US steel tariffs, and New Zealand's anti-nuclear policy, though only briefly.

"It was not the focus of the meeting. If it had been the focus, the meeting would not have taken place," said one observing official.

Still, if the policy is now less of a hindrance, it is not a help. Last year the US and Australia marked the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Anzus pact. New Zealand was not invited to the party.

Like New Zealand, Australia wants a free trade agreement with the US. But Australia will not, at this stage, countenance a three-way negotiation. Instead, it is demanding its loyalty as a longstanding ally be rewarded - and is bad-mouthing New Zealand as it lobbies for a deal on the Washington political circuit.

Clark's parting words to Bush were to alert him to the fact that the Australian and New Zealand economies are now so integrated that cutting New Zealand out of a deal with Australia would be a nonsense. He had been unaware of that. Now he knows.

It is such moments, most of them unseen, that are the measure of whether missions like Clark's two days in Washington are a success.

Nothing dramatic happened. There were no big announcements.

But the face-to-face contact between the two leaders and the recognition of one another's self-interest gives each country's diplomats the necessary big tick at a political level to now explore how, for example, a free trade agreement might be put together.

"It's a launching pad," declared one upbeat member of Clark's entourage, noting the Americans had gone out of their way to ensure the visit went smoothly.

And if things go wrong from here on, Clark can now make a phone call, pretty confident the person at the other end of the line will be listening.