John Key to meet Obama on US visit

John Key with President Barack Obama. Photo / Supplied

Prime Minister John Key has got his long-awaited date with "POTUS," the President of the United States, Barack Obama, at the White House.

Mr Key will meet Mr Obama on July 22, Washington time, or early July 23 New Zealand time.

Mr Key has met Mr Obama on several occasions including in April last year when he was invited by Mr Obama to his Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.

He went the White House on that occasion but to meet with Vice-President Joe Biden.

But this will be the first one-on-one with Mr Obama.

Since then, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has visited New Zealand and signed the Wellington Declaration, a commitment to a new era of partnership including closer defence ties that were strained for 25 years by New Zealand's anti-nuclear legislation.

The last bilateral meeting was in March 2007 when former Prime Minister Helen Clark was invited to the White House by President George W. Bush.

The Wikileaks cables from the US embassy in Wellington showed Mr Key has pressed the issue of a White House visit with Ambassador David Huebner in March last year.

The cable suggests an encounter with Mr Obama at Apec in Singapore had led him believe he had already been invited.

"He [John Key] recounted the conversations at Apec that led him to believe he had a firm invitation from POTUS [the President of the United States]," the cable said.

"Key said the exchanges resulted in him briefing the press in a certain way about the 'invitation', which he said he would not have done if he had thought the offer were actually more casual and indefinite."

The two leaders were both elected in November 2008 and Mr Key has a holiday in Hawaii, Mr Obama's home state.

Mr Key will travel to Washington via Los Angeles and San Francisco but his programme is still being worked out. He will address the Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

The Trans Pacific Partnership free trade talks are expected to be top of the agenda, as well as the war in Afghanistan.

One of the other issues of mutual importance is co-operation in the Pacific where the United States is stepping up its engagement.

The invitation for Mr Key was issued in May this year after Foreign Minister Murray McCully visited Mrs Clinton in Washington.

Mr McCully will be travelling with a large delegation next week to Tonga, Samoa, the Cook Islands and Niue on the Foreign Minister's annual Pacific Missions.