Abbott’s and Key’s Washington Visits: Deepening Two Pacific Partnerships
June 5, 2014
President Barack Obama will host the prime ministers of both Australia and New Zealand in the weeks ahead. Australia’s Tony Abbott will make his maiden visit to the White House on June 12, and New Zealand’s John Key will be there on June 20. This quick succession puts a spotlight on the importance of the “Pacific” in the United States’ Asia-Pacific rebalance, and on the strength of each of these bilateral relationships.
Australia, New Zealand, and the United States enjoy close and natural friendships, with similar colonial roots, a common language, and shared historical experiences. Their soldiers fought side by side in both World Wars and in Vietnam and Afghanistan. And recent years have finally seen the healing of the 1980s rift between New Zealand and the United States over Wellington’s ban on visits by U.S. nuclear-armed or -powered vessels. Obama should seize on these opportune visits to further cooperation with both countries and, in the case of New Zealand, cement progress toward putting historical animosities to bed.
The most important area in which progress is needed is trade. Australia, New Zealand, and the United States have invested significant time and energy in the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, but negotiations are well behind schedule. The Obama administration has made the TPP central to economic engagement as part of the rebalance. Negotiators remain hard at work, but the longer talks go on without demonstrable progress, the more time is available for domestic opposition to grow, especially in the more reticent negotiating countries. Australia, New Zealand, and the United States have all committed to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation vision of a regionwide free trade zone. Completing the TPP is a critical step along that path.
Attention has recently focused on U.S.-Japan bilateral talks, which are critical to finding a breakthrough in the TPP. But Australia, as the fourth-largest TPP economy, and New Zealand, as one of the original four negotiating countries and a significant agriculture and dairy market, cannot be discounted. Obama should seek a genuine commitment from both prime ministers to find a breakthrough in the coming months and push others, especially Japan, to make necessary concessions on core issues like market access.
On the political front, Obama should use Key’s visit to further solidify the new era of U.S.-New Zealand partnership. Relations turned an important corner in 2010 with the Wellington Declaration, which committed New Zealand and the United States to further their relationship at all levels. This was followed in 2012 by the Washington Declaration, specifically committing the U.S. and New Zealand militaries to closer ties and cooperation. Since then, bilateral exercises and military cooperation have increased rapidly.
But the issue of ship visits remains a persistent psychological barrier in the relationship. New Zealand joined the biannual U.S.-led Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) naval exercises for the first time in 2012, but its ships were forced to anchor at a civilian dock rather than at the U.S. Navy facilities at Pearl Harbor. This year’s RIMPAC will remedy that, with New Zealand’s navy welcomed at Pearl Harbor. Obama and Key will doubtless herald this new era in naval relations, but Washington should go a step further.
The U.S. Navy is not in a position to reciprocate with a ship visit to New Zealand, as official policy is to neither confirm nor deny whether vessels are carrying nuclear material. But Key has indicated for some time that his government would welcome a U.S. Coast Guard visit, and public opinion polls in New Zealand are broadly supportive of the idea. Obama should take the opportunity of his counterpart’s visit to announce that such a visit will be forthcoming, thereby sending a strong signal that the disagreements of the past are going to remain in the past.
To cement this, Obama should visit New Zealand during his trip to the Group of 20 summit in Australia this November. Though the president will have a packed schedule during his trip, a stop in New Zealand would be relatively simple and quick. June 20 will mark Key’s second visit to the White House. Returning the gesture would send a strong message about the new era of U.S.-New Zealand relations, and of U.S. commitment to the Pacific as part of the rebalance.
During Abbott’s visit, Obama should underscore the foundational and comprehensive nature of the U.S.-Australia alliance. The two leaders should seek to highlight their nations’ shared history and culture, deep economic and people-to-people linkages, and commitment to preservation of the international order and the global commons. Abbott’s government is facing increasing domestic criticism over his controversial budget, which seeks to cut just about everything except defense, and his costly decision to purchase more next-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighters from the United States. And this comes on the back of revelations about the two allies’ intelligence gathering and sharing activities. At such a time, a reminder that the bilateral relationship is far broader and deeper than just security relations would be welcome.
Obama and Abbott should use the opportunity of their meeting to make clear that Australia and the United States are of one mind when it comes to the future of the Asia-Pacific regional order. Both nations have spoken out forcefully on the importance of peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea according to international law. And both have decried last month’s military coup in Thailand, with Canberra on May 24 echoing Washington in issuing travel restrictions on coup leaders and halting defense exchanges with Thailand. A joint statement addressing those two issues would send a strong message that Australia and the United States are committed to democracy, the rule of law, and a peaceful regional order in the Asia Pacific.
Abbott’s visit also offers an opportunity to highlight the Obama administration’s renewed determination to combat climate change, and to give Canberra’s a shot in the arm. The prime minister will visit Washington just a week and a half after the Obama administration unveiled new regulations aimed at cutting carbon emissions from power plants by 30 percent, and after China followed suit with its own announcement that it will place an absolute cap on carbon emissions starting in 2016.
Abbott campaigned on a pledge to repeal former prime minister Julia Gillard’s 2011 Clean Energy Act, which included a forward-leaning carbon tax. The Australian Senate has so far rejected that repeal effort and on May 31, due to a deadline included in the act, Australia’s greenhouse-gas-cut target officially jumped from 5 percent by 2020 to over 18 percent.
Abbott’s government insists it will find the votes to repeal the carbon tax and reduce that target back to 5 percent. But with the government in Canberra’s popularity sagging and Washington having recommitted to the battle against climate change, Obama should urge Abbott to reconsider. It is uncertain, at best, that he can win this fight. And if he does, he will only be tarnishing Australia’s reputation in a region that is uniquely challenged by rising sea levels, extreme weather, and other effects of climate change.
Across the trade, security, and even climate sectors, June offers a unique chance for the Obama administration to bolster, at the highest level, relations with two important partners and advance its commitment to include the Pacific as an integral part of the rebalance. It should not allow these two head-of-state visits to pass as little more than goodwill trips.
(This Commentary originally appeared in the June 2014 issue of Pacific Partners Outlook.)
Gregory Poling is a fellow with the Pacific Partners Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Benjamin Schaare is a researcher with the Pacific Partners Initiative.
Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).
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