PM seeks out influential Zoellick

By FRAN O'SULLIVAN assistant editor

Prime Minister Helen Clark is seeking a private meeting with a key player in the Bush Administration who is in Paris for trade talks.

If the meeting with United States Trade Representative Robert Zoellick comes off, Clark is expected to use it to defuse any lingering hostility caused by her ill-judged comments on President George Bush and the conduct of the Iraq war.

She will also stress the importance to the global community of a successful conclusion to World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations.

Both the Prime Minister and Zoellick will take part in the annual ministerial meeting at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which begins in Paris today.

Helen Clark will chair the meeting. Zoellick is leading the US delegation and also is scheduled to take part in a WTO "mini-ministerial" meeting chaired by Trade Negotiations Minister Jim Sutton.

Officials were yesterday playing down the prospects of a face-to-face meeting between Helen Clark and Zoellick, saying it now looked as if the US Trade Representative would be in Paris only a very short time.

But Sutton - like Zoellick a trade liberalisation progressive - is expected to broker a rapprochement.

The two men have drawn closer during meetings on the Doha Round agenda.

Zoellick - an influential figure in the Bush Administration - is closely aligned with Washington hawks who advocated a US invasion to effect a regime change in Iraq. His support is critical to New Zealand's chances of getting a free trade deal with the US.

Helen Clark pressed New Zealand's case for a free trade deal in a meeting with Zoellick during her Washington visit last April. In a formal letter advising the US Congress of the Administration's intentions to negotiate a free trade deal with Australia, Zoellick inserted a comfort statement suggesting Congress should advise him if it wished negotiations to also take place with New Zealand.

The Government heralded Zoellick's comments as a breakthrough - an invitation to step up its lobbying campaign. But, in the wake of the Prime Minister's comments, USTR officials have played the issue down as just two paragraphs tacked on the end of Zoellick's letter.

While New Zealand is not on the USTR's "list" - the countries with which the Bush Administration plans to conclude trade deals - Sutton is confident that New Zealand will get cut into the action after Australia has negotiated its free trade agreement with the US.

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He believes the United States would not want to see New Zealand harmed by such a move.

"Jim Sutton developed a very good relationship with Bob Zoellick," Helen Clark said. "Zoellick ensured he was invited to the Japan mini-ministerial, which otherwise would not have happened because the Japanese find New Zealand too radical."

Helen Clark notes success at the WTO always seems to come at the 11th hour. She believes the US will put more effort into this round "because the developing world needs something - it needs signals that it will get a cut out of globalisation".

"So I'm not pessimistic - I know it looks bleak but it always does - that is the way these trade talks work," Helen Clark said.

"They work through crisis ... and they'll sit up for hours until Mike Moore's eyes are hanging out like bean bags and something happens".

Moore, now a special trade envoy for NZ, stepped down as Director-General of the WTO last year.