Trump administration happy New Zealand 'stepping up' - Defence Minister Judith Collins
Friday, 24 October 2025
Defence Minister Judith Collins says the Trump administration is pleased New Zealand is “stepping up”.
Collins has spent the week in Washington DC for meetings with top Trump administration Cabinet officials, including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and deputy assistant to the president Sebastian Gorka.
In an interview, Collins said she was “extremely happy” with the response from the Trump officials.
“It is really important for us to be able to work with that administration, because of the fact that it is so important to us, not only in defence, but also in trade, and it's the second largest trading partner.
“We want people around that cabinet table of the administration that actually, you know, when New Zealand's name comes up, should it come up, are positive about New Zealand and are not seeing us as irrelevant or just difficult.”
Traditional partners of the United States, including New Zealand, have struggled with US President Donald Trump’s administration since its inauguration in January this year. Trump has moved quickly to significantly recast relationships: pressing allies and partners for greater defence spending and applying a sweeping tariff regime to imports.
Collins said the purpose of her trip was to meet her counterparts across her defence, intelligence, and attorney-general roles to discuss the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing relationship, let the administration know New Zealand wanted to expand its defence industry, and talk about being a reliable partner.
“I was extremely happy with the response … They see us as an extremely valuable player, even though we're obviously smaller than other partners.
“They really like the fact that we've been stepping up on deployments, that we are growing our defence force and its capability.”
Alongside Hegseth, Collins met Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby, who has pushed US-ally Australia to spend 3.5% on defence and has at times been critical of the Aukus submarine pact.
Collins said Hegseth and Colby “congratulated us on being able to increase our defence budget”. The Government announced plans earlier this year to spend an additional $9 billion on defence, bringing spending to 2% of GDP by 2032.
“I was not asked for the 3.5% but I certainly have indicated that the 2% is, as we've described on numerous occasions, now a floor, not a ceiling and, as we are capable of doing so, we will step up further.”
Discussions did not canvas specifics such as training between the New Zealand and US militaries, including a suggestion from NZ Army Chief Major General Rose King that regular exercises with US troops in New Zealand may take place.
Collins said she raised New Zealand’s issue with US International Traffic in Arms Regulations, an export-control regime for defence-related technologies, which has been problematic for space technology companies, including NZ-US company RocketLab.
She said New Zealand was the only Five Eyes partner nation that did not have an exemption, after Australia gained one through the Aukus pact.
“I understand there's enormous bureaucracy in the US … but talking to the heads of those agencies, they all took that on board, and I am hopeful we might be able to get some progress, after many years of not getting that much progress.”
She also raised this with Gorka, a longtime Trump ally, and said he understood this was important for New Zealand’s growing technology industry.
Separate from Collins’ meetings, Hegseth on Thursday celebrated another air strike on a “narco-trafficking” boat, or drug running boat, this time in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
The US military has been targeting such boats in the Caribbean, claiming the strike action was justified as, Hegseth puts it, drug smugglers were “waging war” on the US by bringing “poison to our shores”. Under international law, such smuggling is typically treated as a law enforcement matter rather than grounds for military engagement.
Collins said she did not have a “major view” on this action and New Zealand was not involved.
“But I would say that there is a huge amount of transnational crime going across the Pacific, and some of it's coming out of drug labs in places like South America in particular, and Mexico, and it's going up often through the US. So I think that the US is taking action against fentanyl in particular.
“And, as they said to me, fentanyl is this appalling drug which is likely at some stage to come to New Zealand.”
Asked if New Zealand had a position on whether the strikes contravened international law, Collins said that was a matter for the foreign minister.