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The Detail is a daily news podcast produced for RNZ by Press room and is posted on Stuff with permission. Click on this link to subscribe to the podcast.
The new Commander-in-Chief of the United States has connections to New Zealand built during his years as Barack Obama’s vice president. Joe Biden has visited here, loves rugby, plays consensus politics, and is on the same page as this country on climate change.
It is also an important part of the Washington Beltway and will not surprise its official advisers.
“Normal broadcasting will resume,” says our Obama-era Prime Minister Sir John Key.
In this episode of The detailKey talks about his encounters with the president-elect and how he is likely to adapt to New Zealand thinking on a multitude of issues.
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“The first time I met him, I thought he was the quintessential American politician,” he says.
“He was very… complete, actually as a politician. He was very warm, very engaging, knowledgeable, completely personable, made you feel like you’ve known him forever … but genuine, I actually thought, about New Zealand and the relationship of the two countries and our shared history and heritage. I liked him. I really thought he was a really nice guy. “
Carolyn Kaster / AP
Joe Biden has visited New Zealand. He loves rugby, plays consensus politics, and is on the same page as this country on climate change.
Biden arrived in Auckland in 2016 when he accepted Key’s invitation to send a ship to our navy’s 75th anniversary celebrations, breaking a 30-year deadlock in the military relationship that had been broken due to our nuclear posture.
“They thought New Zealand had gone from probably ironically on the bad boy list … to maybe the good boy list,” he says.
Key says that Biden is a centrist politician and will work across the board.
“I remember thinking it was eminently sensible,” he says.
But don’t expect it to automatically reverse all the changes that Donald Trump withdrew from the Obama era.
“It will be interesting to see what happens next,” says Key. “Many of the issues that Donald Trump raised have been long-held views in the State Department. That includes that the Chinese have not always played fair, especially when it comes to land rights. “
He says that many of the ideas have changed in the last four years.
One reversal that Key predicts will occur almost immediately is the United States signing the Paris agreement on climate change.
And he believes it won’t be long before Jacinda Ardern receives an invitation to the White House, something that didn’t happen to her during the Trump years.
“Having a good personal relationship really helps,” he says. “And I think Jacinda Ardern will find it much easier to have a personal relationship with Joe Biden than, for example, with Donald Trump. I would be surprised if the prime minister is not in the White House for the next year. “
