Luxon hits his foreign policy stride, with only a few awkward moments

Saturday, 28 June 2025

Thomas Manch is a senior political reporter.

BRUSSELS | OPINION: There was only one noticeable clanger during Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s journey through China and Europe, which ended on Thursday. The momentary glitch demonstrated both his talent and occasional shortcoming when it comes to his performance on the world stage.

Meeting Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in person for the first time at Carney’s hotel in the Hague, Luxon dove into the grin-and-grip photo opportunity designed to provide visual evidence of a leader-to-leader meeting.

Coming in with a little too much enthusiasm for the perfunctory public remarks, he abruptly asked Carney if he was a Maple Leafs supporter, relaying his efforts to support the ice hockey team while living in the peaceable North American country.

Carney momentarily appeared a little taken aback. The Canadian press pack audibly giggled. Luxon had stepped on one without realising -- Carney is an avid fan of enemy team the Edmonton Oilers.

The Canadian prime minister jarringly quipped about this not being good for trade, and the press was ushered out of the room so the breakfast meeting could begin.

Such a moment may seem inconsequential, and really it was. Relationships can be tough to forge at the best of times, let alone when you’re meeting another world leader, often fleetingly, in front of cameras, with much at stake. But first impressions do matter.

Luckily for Luxon, he has a self-described knack for relationship building.

For more than a week, the PM has been travelling from China, to Belgium, to the Netherlands. Along the way, he’s met countless world leaders. I say countless not because there were too many to count, but because it’s tough to get a read on exactly who he came across.

There were more than 10 formal bilateral meetings with prime ministers and presidents. There were sit-downs with second-tier leaders such as the Chinese Communist Party’s Shanghai secretary-general and the president of the European Council - a part of the octopus-like EU system that would take too long to explain.

On Luxon’s telling he had many more conversations with others at a state dinner held by the Dutch monarchs before the Nato leaders’ summit.

It was a packed schedule, not just with leader meetings but trade visits. The combination produced all sorts of curious scenes.

Here Luxon inspects rows of Chinese soldiers standing stiff in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. Here Luxon takes a ride in an automated airport vehicle with a bunch of Belgian businessmen. Here Luxon chats with an artificial intelligence character at a Dutch horticulture centre.

That he barely put a foot wrong across the long days is a testament not only to his personal skills, but the approach he has taken to New Zealand’s place in the world.

You can argue the toss on an issue-by-issue basis - whether the Government should ditch consideration of Aukus, whether it should have called out the US for the Iran bombing - but in a broad sense, Luxon is asserting New Zealand on the world stage in a way the prior Labour government struggled to do, as the country emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Luxon talks a lot about his ability to form personal relationships quickly with world leaders, the benefits of which he says cascade downwards.

It can be hard to get a sense of the depth of these relationships. Good friends are sometimes leaders who he has spent comparatively little time with. Others are more obviously deep connections -- Luxon threw open his arms for a hug with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, who looked genuinely pleased to be having breakfast with the New Zealand PM.

Former prime minister Jacinda Ardern also forged close relations with certain leaders, but they tended to be fellow progressive politicians. She more readily appeared a contrast to the centre-right folk in Australia and the United Kingdom. This was probably due in part to her international stardom, but this was also an asset when it came to major efforts like assembling the Christchurch Call.

Schoof is a fellow traveller of Luxon’s, a centre-right leader. But Luxon does appear to work hard at pressing the flesh with a wide range of leaders. He talks of relationship building as the essential component of his job abroad, and says some of these bonds need “a lot more EQ”.

Another creditable aspect of Luxon’s approach to foreign policy, 18 months into his government, is that he operates with a coherent framework when it comes to delivering New Zealand’s message.

Before he was elected, some on the diplomatic circuit in Wellington questioned where he stood on China. Would he be toughish on Beijing in the manner the New Zealand Government had adjusted to, or return to the Key-era trade-focused dovishness?

Early on as prime minister, he could fumble through Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade lines on a given issue, at times seeming clunky and unconvincing. Now he hits those ministry talking points like they’re KPIs before a performance review.

It’s not that Luxon is without a perspective on the world without ministry support. At times he refers back to the speech he gave in Parliament as Opposition leader, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy beamed in from Kyiv.

It was a speech delivered with moral clarity that, in the moment, outclassed Ardern’s. He called it a war between “brutality or diplomacy, autocracy or democracy”, offering a glimpse of who Luxon the statesman might be.

Luxon’s framework for this has now become “mature”, to borrow a word he repeats all the time about New Zealand’s relationship with China.

He divides foreign policy into two key components: economic prosperity and security. “You can’t have one without the other,” he says.

Building relationships is the method. Raising the profile of export trade helps raise economic growth. Spending on defence secures that prosperity.

It seems basic, because it is. In some ways, foreign policy is just talk. Taking a position and restating it again and again, making slight adjustments as circumstances change, so that all audiences hear what you want to say. Such a framework provides a scaffolding for conversations across the world.

Such clarity of message was lacking in the final three years of the Labour government. Nanaia Mahuta was a senior politician but was handed a hospital pass when Ardern made her foreign minister despite a lack of experience in that world.

She brought her own world view into the job, most notably in a speech on the China relationship where she expounded a metaphor about a taniwha and dragon.

Bringing a tangata whenua perspective into foreign policy is not without merit -- New Zealand diplomats trade off the country’s indigenous culture when overseas, hence on Luxon’s delegation to China was another outstanding kapa haka group. They were there in support of NZ Inc, despite the misgivings back home about helping a Government which has strained the Treaty relationship.

Mahuta’s foreign policy with an indigenous lens was difficult for those looking into New Zealand to interpret, however. Though Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ attacks on his predecessor can veer into the distasteful, the return to a more traditionalist view of foreign policy from the Luxon Government has been welcomed by the diplomatic corps, and no doubt foreign counterparts.

Luxon can get a bit excited however, and occasionally freelance beyond the bounds set for him. There was an awkward moment in April when Luxon delivered a speech to a business audience suggesting the EU and CPTPP trading blocs could co-ordinate a response to the Trump tariffs. He then hit the phones with leaders in Asia and the EU.

Peters blasted him, cautioning against escalatory talk as the Trump tariff war with China ratcheted up, and forced a retreat in Luxon’s public commentary about the idea.

But Luxon was not alone in wanting this, and this week he talked with EU President Ursula von der Leyen about the idea. But he is vague on the details whenever asked, however. Instead of this fumble, possibly the result of jockeying to be front of the pack, and the fiery response, possibly Peters’ protecting his turf, maybe there was a middle ground to be had.

Nonetheless, Luxon the energiser bunny suits the moment for New Zealand, which needs to be energetic and stand out on a crowded world stage. That free trade talks were opened with protectionist India already counts as a serious win this term.

Any success or failure is not his alone. He has a trio of external-facing ministers who create a package deal.

Peters the hawk plays well into the US view on China, and has longevity and experience respected by the Chinese. Trade Minister Todd McClay gives the vibe of a suave diplomat who could cut a deal with just about anyone if there were export earnings on the table. Defence Minister Judith Collins makes the case for defence spending by talking up a dire strategic picture while constantly posting about World War II history online.

Sometimes I am asked who would be foreign minister in a National-led Government without Peters? There’s no obvious answer. But if circumstances were quite different, maybe it could be Luxon.

* Thomas Manch’s travel to Europe was supported by the European Union in New Zealand.