Most Americans don’t think NZ is freeloading - but the defence challenge is bigger than Trump
Wednesday, 3 June 2026
Dan Schnur is a US-based political analyst, commentator and academic, and has extensive experience working on national and state-level election campaigns, including as national communication director for Senator John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign.
OPINION: I am writing this on behalf of the majority of Americans who know that New Zealand is not “freeloading”. We know that your troops spent 20 years in Afghanistan supporting our country’s war there after the September 11 terrorist attacks. We know that you sent soldiers to help our efforts in Iraq and before that to Vietnam and Korea, and before that in two world wars.
Some of those brave troops paid the ultimate price. We remember that New Zealand’s finest suffered serious injuries and many gave their lives when our country needed you. And we recognise the long history of cooperation between our two nations from Anzus through the Wellington and Washington Declarations.
But we also live in an America that is experiencing one of our periodic bouts with isolationism and protectionism. Ever since the United States emerged as a world power in the early 20th century, we have periodically attempted to withdraw ourselves from the rest of the world. After every major military engagement and after every significant economic downturn for the last 100-plus years, American voters have turned inward and American politicians have quickly followed.
In retrospect, it should come as little surprise that in a generation marked by the Great Recession, the Covid pandemic and the aforementioned Afghanistan War, public opinion has shifted against much of our country’s involvement in global affairs.
Read more:
As defence armament heats up Down Under, can NZ sustain its response?
NZ pushes back against US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s claim it’s ‘free loading’ on defence
Defence Minister Chris Penk holds the line on defence spending, pushes for dialogue
It’s tempting to attribute this shift to our current president, but these sentiments are unfortunately bipartisan. Donald Trump may have killed the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that Barack Obama negotiated with John Key and leaders throughout the region. But Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris all opposed it too.
These bipartisan challenges still exist. While many leaders in both the Democratic and Republican parties recognise the importance of maintaining and strengthening our international alliances, strong populist movements from both the political left and right have created an overriding intransigence on our national political landscape that prioritises walls over bridges. (Even Trump’s recent military adventurism in Venezuela, Iran and elsewhere has been opposed by many Republicans.) Trump’s manner of expressing these attitudes may be unique, but the feelings that he articulates are not.
One of the reasons that Trump appointed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to his current position is that Hegseth expresses his opinions in a similarly pugnacious and confrontational manner, an approach which has greatly endeared him to the president.
So when Hegseth told a questioner at an international conference in Singapore last week that he would encourage New Zealand’s leaders to allocate a greater percentage of the country’s gross domestic product for its military defence, he delivered that message in an especially Trumpian fashion.
The question for New Zealand’s leaders now is how to best respond to such an unwarranted insult. Half a world away, Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, has parried similar criticisms from the Trump administration with a combative pride that has raised his standing among his constituents but created greater challenges for his country on a global stage.
Sanchez, the fiery secretary-general of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, has domestic political goals that are much different than those of Christopher Luxon, so it would be less useful for Luxon to adopt a similar strategy.
So the challenge for Kiwi leaders is to determine how much of an increase in defence spending is necessary to pacify Trump and to ensure that New Zealand’s relationship with the US is as strong as it needs to be in such uncertain times.
Some observers will correctly note that Trump’s time in office is limited, and that his authority will be significantly reduced if Democrats retake a majority in one or both Houses of Congress in this fall’s midterm elections.
But while the next US president may use more courteous language in attempting to persuade New Zealand to spend more, the broader political realities described above makes it unlikely that this pressure will cease altogether.
In other words, Trump’s successor may be more respectful in his/her requests, but the desire for US allies to contribute more money toward their military preparedness will continue.
This will require New Zealand’s leaders to take a gamble of immense potential consequence. Will they continue on their current path of slightly increasing defence spending (but not enough to pacify Trump), betting that the NZ/US relationship will survive additional bumps until the next president takes office?
Or will they decide that a stronger relationship with the American government and enhancing New Zealand’s military capability justify much larger expenditures?
The temptation would be to simply out-wait Trump. But given that America’s isolationism will not automatically leave office with the current president makes that a less certain alternative. There are no easy answers, and the security of both of our nations is at stake.
Read more of Dan Schnur’s writing at: https://www.danschnurpolitics.com/weeklyblog.