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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has spoken with US President-elect Joe Biden in a “very positive and warm” phone call in which Ardern offered Biden access to the New Zealand Covid-19 team.
Biden, in turn, said she wanted to strengthen US-New Zealand relations, work closely on issues like climate change, praised Ardern for her leadership after the March 15 terror attack and for being a working mother.
Ardern, who spoke to Biden on Monday afternoon, later said that he had said the Covid-19 pandemic was his “number one priority” and expressed his desire to speak again on the issue.
“The president-elect said he would like to revitalize the relationship, highlighting the breadth of areas in which there is agreement, while recalling the long-standing nature of the relationship between our countries,” Ardern said.
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The phone call between the US president-elect and New Zealand’s prime minister came earlier than during the previous presidential transition, when Donald Trump called after being in the White House in February 2017; Ardern said the earlier call was “positive.”
Ardern said he invited Biden to visit New Zealand, as Australia has already invited the president-elect to visit him for the 70th anniversary of the ANZUS security treaty between the countries.
Biden visited New Zealand in 2016. Ardern said the US president-elect felt a connection to the region through his own time in Aotearoa and his own uncle’s military service in the Pacific. Ardern’s grandfather also served around the same time.
“It seemed natural, of course, that we would extend that invitation to New Zealand as well,” Ardern said.
“You could tell from the conversation that he felt a real connection to New Zealand, he felt very welcome here and was very happy to receive the invitation to come back here.”
But Ardern was less candid about whether she had been invited to the White House.
“Whether or not a visit like that could take place, or when, is entirely up to the White House.”
Ardern said the currently tense presidential transition was not discussed. Biden won the US election earlier this month, yet President Trump has been unwilling to admit defeat.
“I wanted to focus the time we had on the areas where we are really interested in working together. Topics such as trade.
“We talked about the importance of organizations, like the World Trade Organization, for a country like New Zealand; the ambition we have to solve those problems, the role we have played to date and our enthusiasm to support the work to unblock some of the problems we have experienced. “
Ardern said that Biden spoke very favorably about New Zealand’s Covid-19 response and that he wanted to exchange information on the matter. He recognized that New Zealand had an advantage in responding to the pandemic, being an island nation of 5 million people.
ROBERT KITCHEN / Things
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday.
“I am well aware that what we have done will not be able to be replicated exactly everywhere, but there are many other learnings within that that of course we are happy to share.
“No country’s experience has been linear or perfect, and we’ve all learned things from each other along the way.”
The Biden-Harris transition team, which manages the entry of Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris into the White House, released a statement saying that Biden similarly congratulated Ardern on his re-election.
“He noted that he looks forward to working closely with her on common challenges, including containing Covid-19; address climate change; strengthen multilateralism; strengthen democracy; and maintain a safe and prosperous Indo-Pacific region, ”the statement read.
“The president-elect also praised the prime minister’s extraordinary leadership after the 2019 Christchurch massacre, in Covid-19, and as a working mother and role model.”
