Editorial: Another slap in face by America

One day last week the United States Embassy in Wellington circulated to news services an item it thought "might be of interest". It was a State Department report of a briefing by the US Trade Representative, Rob Portman, on the Bush Administration's plans for more free trade agreements with selected countries this year.

One of them was likely to be South Korea, the US's seventh largest trading partner. Another was Malaysia, a fast-growing Asian economy. A third could be the United Arab Emirates, in line with the Administration's goal of a Middle East free trade area.

Mr Portman also expressed hope that obstacles for free trade agreements with Egypt and Switzerland might yet be overcome, and that despite congressional elections this year Congress might approve agreements with Peru and Oman as well as World Trade Organisation accession agreements with Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Vietnam.

Reviewing ongoing negotiations towards free trade agreements, Mr Portman described those with Panama as "very close". Those with Ecuador and Columbia were "intensive", and he denied reports that talks with Thailand were not going well.

This was indeed of interest to New Zealand because, of course, this country was not mentioned. But what was of even more interest was the fact that the US Embassy should alert us to it. When a response was sought from our Trade Minister, Phil Goff, a spokesman insisted that New Zealand's exclusion from the list was not a slap in the face. The US had issued a similar list before the election last year and New Zealand had not been on it, he said, as if that made a difference.

It is a slap in the face, and the State Department has gone to some trouble to ensure we receive it. The fact that it did the same thing just before an election in this country, risking the charge of interfering in our politics, shows the lengths it will go to make evident its continuing pique at our now 20-year-old nuclear policy.

But the list, and our exclusion, also underlines the Bush Administration's attitude to free trade agreements, which is to use them for purposes that have less to do with trade than with US diplomatic and strategic purposes.

That being the case, New Zealand has less reason to regret its exclusion. These free trade agreements contain limited benefits to the less powerful partner, as Australia's agreement has demonstrated. The much greater concern to this country is that these deals might distract the United States from the far more important task of working to a conclusion of the World Trade Organisation's Doha round. That is the only forum that offers any prospect of progress in reducing agricultural protection across the board and advancing the interests of all countries equitably and of the global economy as a whole.

Thankfully there is no sign that the tiresome nuclear dispute has damaged our ability to work with the US in the WTO and other forums. Nor did it reduce intelligence co-operation between us on the evidence of material recently found among the late David Lange's papers. This column has long acknowledged the right of the US to reduce defence co-operation with a country that would not play its part in a nuclear deterrent. But ever since the US declared that its surface fleet would not routinely carry nuclear weapons the dispute has been ridiculous. As ridiculous as New Zealand's continuing ban on nuclear-fuelled ships. The US weapons declaration effectively ended its neither-confirm-nor-deny position and it means any of its oil-driven warships could come here.

But stubborn pride persists on both sides. Like most old feuds it has ceased to have much practical importance, but it continues to poison the air needlessly in a relationship that matters.