Trump’s Kiwi nomination for the OECD’s highest office divides political parties with New Zealand’s support

President Donald Trump’s nomination of his New Zealand staff member to the top post in the OECD has divided New Zealand’s political parties.

Chris Liddell, who was born in Matamata and went to Mt Albert Grammar, has been nominated by Trump for the position of Secretary General of the OECD.

Liddell currently serves as an assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff for policy coordination at the White House and to help lead the United States’ response to Covid-19.

The Greens ‘foreign affairs spokesman, Golriz Ghahraman, said it was “literally dangerous” to endorse a man who helped lead the United States’ response to Covid-19.

“Trumpish anti-science, anti-cooperation policy has no place in international governance,” he tweeted.

Ghahraman said New Zealand voted “overwhelmingly” in favor of the government’s Covid response, which was rejected in the United States, and that Liddell “was not our values.”

Liddell is also reported to have been involved in the Trump administration’s decision to separate migrant children from their parents.

But National’s foreign affairs spokesman Simon Bridges said New Zealand should support Liddell for the job because “he’s one of us.”

“We are interested in doing it.

Ultimately, and always will be, a boy from Matamata. [at the OECD] means a foot in the door of New Zealand. We will have access that we simply will not get if it is someone from another country. “

Bridges said many people would “confuse” Liddell’s role in the Trump administration and doubt New Zealand would support him, but said that everything he had seen showed that Liddell had his own views.

The Trump administration has taken a hostile approach to multilateral trade.

Bridges said he “would be very surprised” if Liddell, given his Kiwi and professional experience, did not support free trade and was not in favor of market-based principles.

Nominations for the position are still open and a spokesman for the prime minister said the government would make a decision on who to support when nominations closed.

Australia has nominated its finance minister, Senator Mathias Cormann, and will likely ask New Zealand to support him in lieu of Trump’s nomination.

But Bridges said the situation “is like a sport.”

“They would have no illusions that we would back ours over them, just like they would every time the boot was on the other foot.

“Normally, if there wasn’t a heavyweight businessman who turned out to be a Kiwi, he might expect us to support our cousins. But here we have a better option.”

Brooke Van Velden, a foreign affairs spokeswoman for the Act Party, said that the fact that Liddell was “getting more support from Donald Trump than the Green Party is extraordinary.”

“New Zealanders should be united to support him. It is further proof that the Greens should not be close to power,” Van Velden said.

Before joining the Trump administration, Liddell was Microsoft’s CFO, Vice President of General Motors, and CEO of New Zealand-based Carter Holt Harvey.