Winston Peters: We can’t blame US for our problems, we can take Trump less seriously
Friday, 30 January 2026
What do you think about this interview? Have your say in the comments.
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says Christopher Luxon can’t blame the US for New Zealand’s economic problems at home.
In a wide-ranging foreign policy interview with The Post Peters said that he didn’t take US President Donald Trump’s expansionist talk seriously, suggested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro did not deserve the protection of international law, and gave his opinion on Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s well-received speech at Davos.
Peters also rubbished claims that Chinese EVs were a security threat and said New Zealand would be outperforming Australia and Canada “a few months down the track”.
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The veteran foreign affairs minister was speaking to The Post a week after Prime Minister Christopher Luxon gave a state of the nation speech where he blamed a “rupture” in the global order and “tariffs” for cutting down New Zealand’s economic recovery.
Asked if he agreed with Luxon that we could blame the current state of the economy on international forces, Peters said no.
Pushed to elaborate, he said as an export-dependent nation New Zealand should have had more people out around the world selling the country’s product, but for decades we had not been doing this.
“We have lost the plot. We should have been out there around the world trading as hard as we can. But how can you possibly do that when you haven’t got the manpower, womanpower, the firepower in the field?
“It’s no accident that Ireland, Croatia, Singapore went roaring past us. Because they’ve got people in the field,” Peters said.
He pointed to an upcoming trip he is making to South America as evidence of how he was trying to change this, as for “40 years” New Zealand had made no progress in that continent.
Peters: System ruptured long before Carney spoke
The Post asked to interview Peters following the widespread acclaim accorded to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney for his speech at the World Economic Forum, made in light of repeated pushes from Trump to annex both Canada and Greenland, and the abduction of Maduro by American special forces.
Carney said that Canada had prospered under a “rules-based order” led by the US that was always a bit of a fiction - as the US was never quite subject to it - but it was useful as it allowed massive cooperation and growth.
He said this was now over as “great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited” and called for other “middle powers” to work together to counteract the rise of this hard power.
The Trump Administration was clearly angered by the speech and by Canada’s moves to sign a partnership with China, with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attacking Carney for pushing a “globalist agenda”.
Peters seemed perplexed by the reaction to Carney’s speech and suggested that he had not written it.
“I don't usually talk about it, another country's leader’s speech, particularly one that forms the Five Eyes. This is extraordinary for me to comment on that, other than I say I've clearly observed it, and his close adherence to the word prompter. So the next question is - who prepared this speech?” Peters said.
He also suggested that the world order been ruptured far earlier than Carney suggested.
“Remember, it's 2014 and Russia invades Crimea - Europe failed to act. That was when the world was dramatically changing. He's reacting as if it is something that just happened yesterday. Now this part of our world order the way we used to know it has been in decline for some considerable time,” Peters said.
His special foreign affairs adviser Jon Johansson interjected at this point to note that Peters had made this point about the corrosion of international institutions in many UN speeches over the years. Peters and Johansson were determined to anchor their discussion of this matter in the UN, an institution that Peters said New Zealand has been a long-term supporter of but also one that we have long seen the need to reform.
“We've said we want the place to be reformed. Now what more can we do? And for those who want to spout now about what Canada is saying? Well, show me Canada’s speeches in the last 20 years when it comes to United Nations? I can show you ours.”
Asked about the wider point Carney was making - not just about the UN but about the US becoming a coercive force - Peters said he never took Trump’s talk about annexing Canada very seriously, and that Europe had to come to terms with the fact it was not spending enough on its defence.
“I never took Trump's comments about Canada seriously….usurping the right to control Canada? No, no - Republicans are not going to put up with that. I mean - thinking out loud is one way of conducting foreign policy. But there’s no reason for the rest of us to react to that,” Peters said.
Asked about Trump’s push for Greenland Peters said Europe had not been contributing enough to Nato - a common complaint from the US.
He was reluctant to talk through other areas where the US had disrupted the rules-based order.
“We start with the view that if a country decides its tariff policy, that is a matter between the taxpayers of that country and the Government and no one else.”
Peters: No one crying for Maduro
Asked whether Trump’s abduction of Maduro was consistent with international law, Peters suggested that Maduro did not deserve the protection of such a law.
“Kidnapping a foreign leader? He wasn’t even in there legitimately. He manufactured an election. He’s a lying terrorist cheat - and now you want to defend him? Well nobody in Venezuela is crying about him.
“When you make the statement about international law, then you have to have earned the right for the protection of it. If you've shown absolute contempt for international law and every one of it precepts, then how can you now be screaming out for the defence of it when you've given no freedom at all in your own governmental life, when you seize power illegally?”
But pressed on whether that made the US actions legal, Peters said that was a matter for the US.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has been particularly critical of the Government on this matter, saying it should be more openly critical of what was clearly a breach of international law.
“Taking over a country with no international law backing you is a very big step for the United States to take, and for New Zealand to say nothing about that has been an abrogation of what has previously been a very principled foreign policy position by New Zealand.”
Peters: Rules-based order worth saving, but not ‘elite globalism’
Peters said he did agree with Carney that the international system was worth fighting for, but doing so would require that system to increase its democratic legitimacy and stop pandering to “elite globalism”.
“It is worth standing up for, I agree with Carney on that, but it requires people to have principles and dedication and consistency and serious integrity, not just multifarious deceit, which is half the engagement that people you’ve seen internationally over the years have been doing,” Peters said.
Peters took aim at the World Economic Forum where Carney made the speech and concepts it has been associated with, such as “15 minute cities”.
'15 minute cities' are an urbanism concept that suggests people should be able to access all the amenities they need within a 15 minute walk or cycle ride of their home. The concept has become a topic of online conspiracy theorising with some believing that they will lead to governments banning anyone from travelling outside of this zone.
“It is elite globalism with plans for people without any regard to democratic legitimacy,” Peters said.
“They had those 15 minute - you know what they call them - 10 minute cities, and all these plans they had for people, without any regard to the people, and the people out there at a much lower level of politicians were actually getting a grip and understanding of it, whether it was right or wrong, and being highly resentful.”
Peters was more happy to discuss the domestic politics of other nations than politicians often are, saying things had been “volcanic” in other Five Eyes nations.
“For example, [Canadian Opposition leader Pierre] Poilievre was going to win in Canada, until President Trump made that comment - that was it. That’s why we’ve currently got Carney. The UK’s government rating is coming at around 18% at the moment, Reform is on 28%, 29%, 30%.”
Peters met with a Reform UK board member while he was in New Zealand recently and has openly talked about a common world view with the party currently upending British politics.
Peters suggested that New Zealand would be outperforming the economies of Canada and Australia “a few months down the track”.