Winston Peters US trip: Call for Trump administration to focus on China moving into Pacific

Winston Peters says Chinese warships moving into the Pacific “needs” to be on the radar of Washington as he makes his first trip to the US as Foreign Minister.

Peters is travelling around the United States this week for discussions with the country’s top leaders following a tumultuous time in the White House.

He told Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB he was willing to hear out the Trump administration and wanted to discuss the live firing exercises by a fleet of Chinese ships last month.

“I believe [the warship incident] is on their radar, and if it’s not in a major way, it needs to be and perhaps that will be part of the discussion we have.

“We’re approaching the Trump administration with our eyes wide open and prepared to listen, hear them out, hear their side of the story, and make sure that we get a chance to accurately present our side of the story as well.”

Peters will hold meetings with members of the Trump Administration, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“With a guy like Rubio, we’d go in there well prepared because we’ve had, probably now over a year getting ready well before the US elections in November, getting our team ready for a change if there was, and we thought there would be a change to a Trump administration.”

Peters described Rubio as “very experienced” and ”very talented".

He was also meeting with President Trump’s National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, and the head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Peter Marocco, in a bid to continue to build New Zealand’s ties with the United States.

“Our long-standing record on democracy, freedom, liberty, all the things that the American people regard as being important” would be discussed, he said.

Peters said the ongoing discussions on Aukus Pillar Two will be touched on during discussions.

“New Zealand is not just a spectator. New Zealand has been a significant country over a long period of time where American interests are concerned, and our job is to remind people of that.

“We’re a small country, but an important one and to say that, at the end of the week, we’ve had successful discussions will be enough, providing we’ve got a commitment to take those discussions forward in a seriously meaningful way, both in respect to trade and with respect to security.”

Peters departed New Zealand last week and arrives back on Friday.

Jaime Lyth is a multimedia journalist for the New Zealand Herald, focusing on crime and breaking news. Lyth began working under the NZ Herald masthead in 2021 as a reporter for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei.