Five questions for Washington insider Scot Faulkner

The newly installed Trump Administration continues to catch New Zealand officialdom by surprise. So MSC Newswire asked Washington insider Scot Faulkner (above) what Wellington’s response should in fact be? Mr Faulkner was elected the first Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. His reforms became a model for the operation of national parliaments around the world.

The New Zealand Foreign Ministry has set up a special focus group solely for the purpose of identifying early warning of new policies promulgated by President Trump, the ones which will have an impact on this country. Can you short circuit this by helpfully forecasting any of these pending surprise policies?

The New Zealand Foreign Ministry’s Trump Task Force will only be of value if it discards long held assumptions and embrace a totally new way of thinking and acting. Trying to predict Trump through traditional means, such as monitoring after-the-fact media, is like using ouija boards, tarot cards, and horoscopes.

The Ministry’s primary objective should be to move at “Trump speed” and navigate in Trump’s world. Non traditional sources, non traditional methods will be keys to success. Thinking like a visionary risk-taking entrepreneur instead of a politician is the first step into this new reality.

Trump is unique. No one like him has ever been the President of the United States. While a few Presidents had business experience, their main credentials were either the military or government. America usually faced political or military crises. The 2007-2008 economic collapse convinced most Americans that something radical was necessary. So they rallied around a businessman who was known to most as a reality television star. As Trump stated, “everyone else has failed you – what do you have to lose? Try me.”

Trump’s unique background means unique thought patterns and processes. President Trump gets his ideas, news, and validation from places never before involved in governing. He is fearless, non linear. He embraces chaos, acts on intuition, moves quickly, and uses surprise as a strategic weapon. Sometimes only he knows the ultimate objective. He is a student of military history, especially Sun Tzu. That is what gave him the winning edge in business, the Republican primaries, and the 2016 general election.

Trump’s new Administration is already being tested by China, Russia, and a variety of other nations. President Trump’s responses will indicate many things: how fast he responds, how he responds, how he views the challenge and the challenger, how he frames the challenge within his existing world view, how willing is he to vary from stated positions to address a unique situation, how willing is he to escalate, whose advice does he value, who he collaborates with, and who, how, and what does he communicate regarding the challenge to Congress, the American public, and other nations.

New Zealand needs to understand that the next four to eight years has a very different global player. Trump’s approach will be very personal, intimate, intuitive, immediate, chaotic, and against all conventional wisdom, very successful.

All the indications are that the New Zealand diplomatic apparatus in New York and Washington was wrong footed by the Trump ascendancy. This led to falling in line with the Obama era last moment positioning of New Zealand as co-endorser of the UN anti-Israel resolution. Does New Zealand need to backtrack here?

New Zealand should always be wary of being pulled into American politics. Obama’s last minute swipe at Israel during his waning days as President should have been avoided at all costs. Obama’s behind the scenes orchestration of the resolution, which was being delayed until the new Administration, was ill-advised and dilatory. It undermined decades of America being a positive force in the region.

President Trump is a great friend of Israel. He and his team believe that, historically, enemies of America have funded the radical elements of the Palestinian cause.

Trump is committed, heart & soul, to destroying radical Islam and reining-in Iran. His priority is working with those nations that share his view. He sees Israel, and the moderate Arab governments, like Egypt and Jordan, as allies in eradicating ISIS, Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and their regional and tribal affiliates throughout the Arab world, Asia, and Africa.Trump and his foreign policy team fundamentally differ from the Neo-conservatives who surrounded President George W. Bush. They adhere more to the Reagan-Thatcher/John-Paul II approach of destroying tyranny, but not trying to second guess centuries of local custom through nation building. America’s role is to inspire, not intervene, in a nation’s journey toward a freer society.Israeli settlements are far more complex than the media portrays. Palestinian contractors and workers build Israeli settlements. West Bank unemployment soars whenever Israel slows or suspends new settlements. The chasm between peaceful, free, and democratic Israel and violent, oppressive, Islamic failed states in the region is stark. Land for Peace has been a chimera for Israel. De-radicalizing Palestinian leaders and their movement would go further in creating lasting peace than continuing to place the onus on Israel.

The Anti-Israel Resolution validated Trump’s view that the United Nations is currently there to promote radical anti-Western policies while wasting vast sums of money. It further proves his wisdom of pursuing America’s interests through bilateral, not multilateral, arrangements.

New Zealand has supported in spirit the US-EU trade embargo against Russia called up by President Obama. Is there a defined timetable to conclude this embargo?

There is no defined timetable for ending or modifying the trade embargo against Russia.

President Trump and his inner circle have a non-ideological practical “America first” world view. It harkens back to the 17th/18th Centuries. During that era, Western nations united to stop the expansion of the Ottoman Empire then competed, sometimes violently, to dominate world trade.

President Trump wants to build relationships with Russia and China for ridding the world of rogue players – radical Islam, Iran, and North Korea. This is why he picked Rex Tillerson, who has strong relationships with Russia as his Secretary of State, and Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, who is friends with President Xi Jinping, as Ambassador to China. This is also why Trump picked a skilled fighter, James Mattis, as his Secretary of Defense.

Trump’s trade and business team is equally ready to help America win in world commerce. Wilbur Ross, Steve Mnuckin, and Robert Lighthizer will aggressively negotiate favorable trade agreements and rebuild U.S. competitiveness.

Russia remains problematic as its adventurism in Ukraine and intimidation of the Baltic States complicates Trump’s desire to be “frenemies”. Tillerson will be challenged to craft the right mix of incentives and punishments to refocus Russo-American relations. The current US-EU trade embargo will be assessed within this context.

The Transpacific Partnership Agreement signed in Auckland last year was No 1 on President Trump’s hit list. Looking at the longer term where do you see the advantages/disadvantages in this?

President Trump is all about building one-on-one personal relationships with world leaders. Bi-lateral relationships were his strong suit in business and will serve him well as President. They allow him more flexibility and agility. He has little interest in multi-lateral agreements or entities.

This is why TPP was in his cross hairs as a candidate and now as President. New Zealand and other TPP nations need to offer their best “value proposition” for trade relationships that will benefit the U.S. as much as themselves. These are the kinds of agreements that will get Trump’s attention and become his priority.

Trump prides himself on the foreign investments in America he has facilitated or promoted. He wants American companies to “come home” to America, and foreign companies to settle in America. Trump’s goal is to bring the best of the world to America to rebuild infrastructure and generate lasting employment opportunities. There is a new world of opportunity for New Zealand investment and partnering in America.

Given the available evidence it is hard not to conclude that officials here have only a threadbare understanding of what is going on in the relevant circles of United States policymaking. Where should they be looking? Who should they be talking to now?

Trump’s tweets remain the best original source. Trump won the nomination and the general election by going directly to the public. Over 50 million Americans follow Trump on Twitter and Facebook. The Washington-New York media have become completely irrelevant to the Trump Administration and to Trump’s America.

President Trump has revolutionized the way policy is created, promoted, and implemented. The establishments within the Federal Government, Congress, media, academia, and policy forums, still do not have a clue about what is happening before their eyes.

America’s post-Cold War drift through four failed Presidents has come to an end.

Reagan won the Cold War by using skills he developed in movies and television to command the world stage. Those skills destroyed the Soviet Empire, relaunched the U.S. economy, and redefined the role of government. Trump is using his business and reality television skills to command the world stage for himself and the United States. Like Reagan, Trump is seeking to defeat tyranny, in this case radical Islam, relaunch the U.S. economy, and not just redefine, but completely reinvent government. The establishment dismissed Reagan until he succeeded. The establishment is dismissing Trump, and will be just as embarrassed should he succeed.

Conservative talk radio speaks for Trump and puts his actions and tweets into context. They aggressively expose the liberal media and the Democrats when they promote fake news and conspiracies about Trump. Trump watches Fox news, listens & calls into conservative talk radio, and avidly follows their social media posts. Each validates the other. The most articulate and insightful conservative commentators are Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levine, and Chris Plante. Washington-based WMAL radio hosts all three.

Exporters Must Persuade Government to Start Backtracking.

Russia’s ban on importing New Zealand beef on the grounds of discovering additives in it has in fact all the characteristics of a reprisal for participating in the United States-invoked embargo.

New Zealand is viewed as an easy target as the Russians now start retaliating against those nations which supported the blockade.

The embargo mainly involved the United States and the EU. But anxious to appease the United States New Zealand deliberately demonstrated “solidarity” with the US, in the words of former premier John Key.

In return for this New Zealand took pole position in the now defunct Trans Pacific Partnership Treaty and as a special reward Auckland was chosen as the venue for participants to sign it.

There are indications that Russia will use several hygiene scares in recent years to choke off supplies of New Zealand dairy products.

At one time Russia was considered as New Zealand’s prime emerging market. But since the 1980s Russia has been supplanted by Asia.

It is here though that the US embargo on Russia did its most serious damage to New Zealand trade.

This occurred when France was prevented from sending its milk to Russia, along with milk exports from several other EU nations.

The result was the EU milk surplus now found its way to China, severely depressing demand for New Zealand milk.

New Zealand’s position in the US-led blockade of Russia will remain a problem for some years to come even though the embargo itself has now become moot under President Donald Trump.

Commodity exporters are trying to cool the ardour of New Zealand legislators in the matter of supporting the embargo.

This will allow them to mend fences with the Russians.

One advantage here will be the resignation at the end of last year of New Zealand premier John Key, known to be an ardent supporter of former United States president Barack Obama.

The public and indeed New Zealand’s legislators in the matter of the long-running embargo have something in common in that they have both been unaware of the consequences of participating in the blockade.

In France, in contrast, the consequences are well understood. Russia’s president Putin (pictured) deliberately called up well-publicised bulldozings of French produce found to have entered Russia via bills of ladings sourced in its old African colonies.

France, under pressure from the United States, was forced to abandon its showpiece advanced technology export which was its Mistral Class vessel for Russia’s navy.

Combined with the loss of its Russia disposal market for milk products the embargo is one of the factors behind the elimination of France’s ruling Socialist Party from any contention in this year’s presidential election.

|  From the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |  Wednesday 8 February 2017  ||

Lesson on Danger of Issuing Unenforceable Edicts

New Zealand’s sponsorship of the United Nations resolution condemning Israeli house construction on its occupied territories has had a result opposite to the one intended.

Israel has now launched the construction of sufficient housing in these territories to accommodate the equivalent of a New Zealand city i.e. more than 20,000 people.

In the event New Zealand as a temporary member of the security council was the instrument of a long incubated policy, now turned punitive, of former US president Barack Obama.

President Obama had long been determined to persuade Israel to cease new buildings on the occupied territories—for however brief a period of time.

In 2010 then president Obama promised a bounty of incentives including a flight of the latest fighter aircraft if Israel would cease these new buildings. Also vouched was an undertaking to scotch any moves in the UN to issue any resolution of the type to which New Zealand was co-sponsor at the end of last year.

In the event Israel’s long-running premier Benjamin Netanyahu (pictured), fearful of his coalition crumbling held fast to his construction scheme even though a three month freeze would have been enough to mollify president Obama, under pressure from his liberal wing.

The former president was now on the war path and determined to punish Israel with a condemnatory resolution at United Nations.

To make it remotely effective he had to have among the sponsors a christian anglo saxon nation.

Enter now New Zealand with its modest Jewish lobby and, even if there was any outcry, a pc media reluctant to give any pick up to it.

The New Zealand New York-Washington diplomatic presence meanwhile was listening to the politico-media-entertainment class.

The legations had become convinced that Hillary Clinton was the next president.

By sponsoring the resolution they were assured, they would build points with the incoming president.

They understood that as a ruling family the Clintons remained acutely aware of those who render favours, and those who do not.

Even so, if the New Zealand diplomatic stations had maintained contacts with the FBI, they would have had access to quite a different opinion.

The FBI with its field offices in the United States hinterland was receiving consistent reports of the dissatisfaction with the status quo in general and with the Clinton ascendancy in particular.

In any administrative staff college treatment of any kind of governance whatsoever there is usually one outstanding caution.

It is the danger of issuing an edict that cannot be enforced and that therefore will be flouted.

Worse still, if it is seen to be obviously being ignored, as with the no-building resolution.

|  From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk  |  Monday 6 February 2017  ||

US bungling must not be repeated

A National Front victory in the pending presidential/general election in France shows every sign of wrong-footing the New Zealand government in the same way that the United States presidential outcome did, writes our European correspondent.

Now rated as the front-runner a National Front victory will also see France quit the EU which in turn will signal the end of the entire EU project.

The New Zealand Foreign Ministry must now forcibly and unambiguously direct its officials to now actively consider a National Front victory in the elections in France---and to adjust their own forecasts around this possibility.

On Wednesday, 25 January 2017 MSC Newswire forecast:-France’s Marine Le Pen is Looking Increasingly Presidential—Likely to pick up Socialist Party Votes in Runoff.

Since then the main challenger to the National Front, the Republican Party’s Francois Fillon has become enmeshed in a high profile corruption case in which his wife appeared to receive a substantial public salary for doing work that has still to be defined.

New Zealand’s foreign service officials should now receive a directive to the effect that they must contemplate an outcome that they passionately and personally abhor - - a National Front electoral victory.

On this occasion the closed-loop elitist nature of foreign service practitioners, far removed from the cares and fears of ordinary people, must be prevented from igniting the same partisanship that unreservedly forecast a victory for Hillary Clinton.

These saw New Zealand taxpayers enmeshed in the Clinton fund, and in taking at the United Nations an unnecessary stance on Israel designed to put New Zealand in an unfavourable light with the unanticipated incoming administration.

The directive to officials should accommodate the understanding that, yes, they may have to reveal their misgivings about the National Front.

But that in operational terms they must be prepared on this occasion for an outcome that horrifies they and the people they professionally associate with.

In short, foreign service officials who tend to be cut from the same rather exquisite cloth, must recall in the words of the French saying that though they talk to the captains “it is the crew that does the voting.”

The outcome of the recent primaries of France’s ruling Socialist Party have been more of an upset than most had imagined.

Manuel Valls, until recently France’s young and tough prime minister was swept out of any party presidential flag bearing role by a much lesser-known outsider Benoit Hamon (pictured) advocating a 32 hour week and a capitation tax on robots.

Wellington, on this occasion, must make it clear to its foreign service and trade representatives that it wants facts rather than hopes.

| From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk  |  Wednesday 1 February 2017  ||

Le Pen article

France’s Political Class Blind to PS votes going to FN

The breaking of France’s presidential glass ceiling by Marine Le Pen promises to be more shattering than any fall-out connected with the now broken presidential hopes of Hillary Clinton.

This is because the fall-out will be a compound one blended from the glass ceiling effect and the upset triumph of President Donald Trump.

The French political class which is far more pervasive than anything their English-speaking counterparts can put forward is only just realising the truth that has been hiding in plain sight.

It is that Marine Le Pen and her Front National Party have a very good chance of winning the pending presidential general election.

As with their English-speaking counterparts the French political classes only in the last few weeks have understood that she is short circuiting the sectors that customarily act as middlemen between politicians and voters.

We are talking here of once-admired categories such as academics, think tank intellectuals, and of course journalists.

Marine Le Pen channeled Donald Trump before Donald Trump started running for President.

The most recent milestone on her own presidential route is the embarrassing back tracking of academics, think tankers, and journalists on the outcome of the primary within the Republican Party for its presidential candidate.

France’s commentators, much more esteemed than their counterparts in the English-speaking zone, had stated that the winner would be the more liberal of the two conservative party front-runners, Alain Juppe.

In the event the party plumped for the more right-leaning Francois Fillon.

As a result of this France’s biggest circulation daily Le Parisien did something that its English-speaking zone counterparts have still signally failed to do.

This was to acknowledge that its employees’ wishes manifested as fact and that opinion now had to be separated from news.

It banned from its pages all tendentious reporting and, more importantly still, opinion polls.

Even so, the French intellectual class, traditionally cherished in a way that its English-zone counterpart is decidedly not now radiates a fresh formula.

This holds that, yes, Marine Le Pen may perhaps be head-to-head with Francois Fillon in the first stage of the presidential elections.

But that she will be washed out in the second stage or run-off procedure in which French voters are required to unambiguously list their preference.

As with their US and British counterparts the commentariat cannot bring itself to ask itself from which sectors Marine Le Pen will draw her votes in this head-to-head or sudden-death challenge.

These votes are increasingly being seen as being drawn from the current ruling party the Socialist Party which has become so unpopular that its chances of regaining the Elysee are not even being considered.

Marine Le Pen has promised to close the book on political correctness and all that it contains. This means globalisation (think EU) and multi-culturalism (think the religiously affiliated version.)

This is music to the ears of provincial France where local products are being swamped by lower-cost competition from the rest of the EU.

She would seek détente with Russia which since the US and EU led embargo has ceased to take France’s surplus farm output.

She will stem the tide of immigrants who are viewed by this same sector (think “deplorables”) as lowering wage rates and putting pressure on accommodation and social services.

Meanwhile Marine Le Pen while keep the emphasis on France’s imperial world-power yearnings, notably in Oceania, where she has long had a soft spot for New Caledonia.

|  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |  Wednesday 25 January 2017  |

The White House website has been updated with a new trade strategy in the wake of President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

“This strategy starts by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] and making certain that any new trade deals are in the interests of American workers,” the website states.

“President Trump is committed to renegotiating NAFTA,” it continues. “If our partners refuse a renegotiation that gives American workers a fair deal, then the President will give notice of the United States’ intent to withdraw from NAFTA.

Many critics argue that Trump’s desire to withdraw from the 12-country TPP, which includes Canada, Mexico and Japan, contradicts his anti-China attitude on trade.

They see the trade deal — which excludes China but includes other Asian countries like Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam — as an attempt to limit China’s economic influence.

Scrapping the deal in essence strengthens China’s economic dominance in Asia, critics say.

And the U.S.’s withdrawal from the TPP has not yet killed the deal entirely.  >  >  >  Continue to read the full article

|  From The Huff Post, Canada - January 21, 2017  |

• Brexit is being driven as much by fear of immigration as passion for free trade
• We need to embrace Africa and Latin America, not just our old and slow-growing friends
• Britain must genuinely open up to all corners of a fast-changing world

Theresa May yesterday gave the clearest indication of Britain’s future direction of travel. Her mantra is “Global Britain” – a phrase we will hear endlessly over coming years. The referendum was a vote “to become even more global and internationalist in action and in spirit”, she said.

Certainly, it was good to hear May speak passionately about the power of free trade, not least as the lethally protectionist Donald Trump becomes president of the United States.

But this flies in face of quitting the single market – collectively the world’s biggest economy and destination for almost half of Britain’s exports. Indeed, there was deep irony that May’s speech was in the same venue, Lancaster House, where Margaret Thatcher once extolled this noble concept of unfettered access.

The truth is that for all May’s fine words, there are significant problems with her vision of “Global Britain”.

The first is in the timescale. No one should doubt that sorting out extraction from the European Union and creating scores of new trading arrangements is a mind-bogglingly complex, delicate process with massive consequences

Yet as the clock ticks on Britain’s departure from the European Union, there will be fierce pressure on the Prime Minister to prove her country can stand alone. Already she has been attacked, often unfairly, for obfuscation.

The danger in trying to rush through the kind of deals that will be needed – both with the EU 27 and others – was put to me by a senior cabinet minister recently.

He gave the example of the bilateral trade deal between China and Switzerland. Concluded just under three years ago, it was hailed as the first between the planet’s emerging superpower and a leading Western economy, the culmination of nine rounds of negotiations, starting in 2010.

But while the deal gave 99.7 per cent of Chinese goods tariff-free access to Swiss markets, it was significantly less generous for trade heading in the opposite direction.

Shortly before conclusion of the talks, the chief Swiss negotiator pleaded for a special dispensation for watchmakers selling to their third biggest market, pointing out that China did not produce luxury timepieces.

His Chinese counterpart smiled. “You may have the watches,” he replied. “But we have time on our side.”

Despite Mrs May’s brave talk of dispensing with a deal if it is on the wrong terms, she is the leader needing to find solutions far more than those she faces over the negotiating table. This means she is more likely to grant the greater concessions.

Similarly, Mrs May talked yesterday of ensuring Britain is a world centre for science and innovation, pledging to continue collaboration with Europe. Quite right, too. Yet already such partnerships are fraying following last year’s vote.

Europe may also have other ideas, focusing on internal collaboration rather than aiding a turncoat. Note how a Swiss threat to end single market participation led to the instant severing of academic ties three years ago.

Yet there is a far more fundamental problem with the prime minister’s plan – which is that its vision of a Global Britain appears to be blurred, to put it kindly.

One of the main factors forcing Britain from the single market, and probably the customs union, is not a desire to embrace free trade. It is Mrs May’s antipathy to immigration, fostered in the Home Office and fuelled by last year’s referendum.

To her credit, she has at least made it clear that controlling immigration comes first. This follows her constriction of border controls at the Home Office and her refusal to exclude students from the Government’s immigration cap, to the detriment of both Britain’s businesses and its world-beating universities.

So it is clear, despite promises of some campaigners, that Brexit will not lead to a significantly more liberal stance for migrants from outside Europe.

Mrs May talked also in grand terms about creating a more global Britain “not for ourselves, but for those who follow. For the country’s children and grandchildren”.

Already we hear much talk of the Anglosphere, as traditionalists promote the cause of deeper alliances with the likes of Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

British and New Zealand leaders have talked of a “high quality” deal, with international trade secretary Liam Fox being despatched to Wellington in coming months. Meanwhile, a few glib words from a slippery president-elect led to huge excitement among Brexiteers.

But if the nation is really focusing on long-term prizes – a sensible idea, given the short-term disruption to business that will follow even a benign Brexit – where is the effort to woo the powerhouses of the future in the developing world?

Not just China and India, important as they are, but the rapidly-growing nations of Africa and Latin America?

Australia, Canada and New Zealand are today worth about $3 trillion, and growing at the same unexciting speed as other mature nations – perhaps 2 per cent over coming decades. New Zealand is smaller economically than Romania, let alone the likes of Argentina, Iran or Nigeria.

As the economist Charles Robertson explained in his book The Fastest Billion, Nigeria alone will be worth $6 trillion by 2050. The entire African continent – its population due to double to two billion by that date – will be worth almost $30 trillion.

To put this figure in perspective, it is bigger than the combined economies of the United States and Eurozone.Elsewhere on CapX

Yet Britain, obsessed with aid not trade, is seeing its share of that growth slip while others from China to India, Brazil and Turkey move in on fast-expanding consumer societies.

This is highly damaging, not least given Britain’s historic links to these areas – the shared language in many parts, the immense soft power of our culture, and even our Premier League football.

Nigerians, for example, are among biggest per capita spenders in our shops – and like several other African nations including Ghana and Kenya, are keen consumers of British education.

Yet from businesspeople to tourists, many Africans have found the costs of obtaining British visas soaring, the hurdles of hostile officialdom rising ever higher, and the consequent attraction of dealing with other nations increasing.

Having been involved in bringing musicians from all over Africa into Britain, I am well aware of visa horrors endured even by some of the continent’s most famous names. And I have heard frequently from middle-class Africans about their disgust at being treated with such disdain by our suspicious system.

So where is the effort to push deals with African countries, despite several being among the world’s fastest-growing economies in recent years? Or a Latin American giant such as Brazil?

Where, in other words, is the focus on the countries and emerging economies that will dominate the future – not just those places that have been our old friends in the past? Where is the recognition that these countries will need access to Britain not just for their goods but for their students and businesspeople, their thinkers and tourists?

If I really thought Brexit would lead to a genuinely global shift in British attitudes, then I would feel far more optimistic about these tumultuous events – and about some of the sentiments in May’s landmark speech.

But at the moment, the self-defeating focus on immigration limits any sense of a genuine global stance.

If Britain really wants to make the most of Brexit, to truly fulfil the Prime Minister’s promise “to become even more global and internationalist in action and in spirit”, it needs to shed the hostility to foreigners that drove so much of the Brexit debate – and genuinely open up to all corners of a fast-changing world.

| A CAPX release  by Ian Birrell  |  January 18, 2017  |

The experience of a New Zealander who served in three White House Administrations suggests Chris Liddell will have a front row seat to history while working as an assistant to Donald Trump.

Peter S Watson grew up in Mt Eden and attended Auckland Grammar, but a career in law later spanned top US law firms and saw him become involved in politics.

Watson worked for George Bush Snr's Administration as a director of Asian Affairs for the United States National Security Council, and later held top posts in the George W. Bush Administration.

A Republican, he was appointed chairman of the high-powered US International Trade Commission by the Clinton Administration.Chris Liddell. New Zealand Herald Photograph by Doug Sherring. Chris Liddell. New Zealand Herald Photograph by Doug Sherring.

Back in New Zealand in 2007, Watson - now president of the Dwight Group, a Washington, D.C.-based investment bank - told the Herald of the experience and pressures of working in the White House, at times directly reporting to the President.

As Asian director of the National Security Council - the advisory group to the President - Watson's role covered South East Asia, Indochina and the South West Pacific.

He played a part in efforts to end the rule of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and had to respond to coup attempts against the then Philippine president Corazon Aquino.

Watson, a dual citizen of New Zealand and the US, recounted being in the situation room when rebel forces were strafing Aquino's presidential palace.

"When these crises are evolving, you always have to keep in the back of your mind a sort of DNA reference of what you stand for long term," he said of the experience.

Associate Professor Stephen Hoadley, international relations scholar at the University of Auckland, said a New Zealander being appointed to the sort of positions held by Watson and now Liddell was unusual.

That was despite a large number of foreigners working in Government in the US, which was an "amazing open system", Hoadley said.

As well as his business experience, Liddell was previously chairman of Project Crimson, a charitable trust that aims to protect New Zealand's endangered pohutukawa and rata trees.

"He does have a green inclination - like all New Zealanders do - and that may in fact put him at odds with Trump's 'drill baby, drill' and 'climate change is a hoax' approach," Hoadley said.

"He will be his own man - he has been chairman of Xero and he is pretty strong minded individual. He won't be bulldozed by Trump's somewhat misdirected urges."

Hoadley said Liddell had the chance to make a difference.

"The good thing about Trump - if there is any good thing about him - is he does want governmental reform, he wants change, he wants efficiency like a well-run business.

"If Liddell can contribute to tidying up the apparatus of US Government that must be good for everyone."

|  MyInforms.com  |  January 18, 2017  |

White House-to-White House Pretenders replace Log Cabin -to- White House

With the inauguration of President Donald Trump three still active United States presidential dynasties make their transition into exile.

Temporary exile, as these Pretenders see it.

In Napoleonic terms the monarchical familial trio are by-passing a remote St Helena and heading to a more lightly guarded in-shore Elba from which they can make their escape when the call comes, as they ardently believe it will.

First among these is the Bush dynasty which has already supplied two republican monarchs, George 1 and then George 11. But which failed to install Jeb 1

Second is the Clinton one which bestowed upon the United States a co-monarchy similar to that of the reign in Britain of William and Mary.

But which so agonisingly failed last year to re-install itself with Hillary now in prime regal Pretender position.

Third, and the most promising of the dynasties-in-waiting is the newest one, the Obama line.

The intervention in the final stages of the anti -Trump campaign by Michelle Obama, and the First Lady’s subsequent mainstream participation in the sorrowful aftermath leaves few in doubt that the Obamas are in dynastic mode as far as the presidency is concerned.

These dynasties do not intend to sit out the next four years which they regard anyway as an interregnum or at best, a regency.

They know that if you intend to end up in the White House, it make sense to start at the White House.

Gathering a war chest will not be a problem.

All those court jesters, fire-eaters, tumblers, strolling player, song-and dance contributors (see illustration) at the Obama White House final curtain call party by their mere appearance pledged their allegiance for another round of fund raising.

The log cabin to White House journey has in applied terms now been replaced by one from The White House back to the White House.

The Clintons have devoted their adult lives to campaigning and they have no intention of stopping now.

The kingmakers of the Democratic Party will look though with much greater favour on a Michelle candidacy in 2020 than on a Hillary one.

This will be an action-replay of the way in which they looked so much more favourably on the original candidacy of Barack Obama than they did on Hillary’s in the primaries of all those years ago.

All this is curious enough. But not as mystifying as the American refusal to comprehend the way in which their republic is so demonstrably changing its course back to the era of feudal family inheritance.

For the Tudors, Plantagenets, and Stuarts read now Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas.

Now though post inauguration these feudal families disperse to their separate fiefdoms to rally their forces for the next round.

The Bushes to the South.

The Obamas back to the crucible of Democratic politics Chicago, but keeping visible a shop window residence in Washington.

The Clintons the Liege Lords of New York back to the Big Apple there to polish the fervour of their vassals and villeins.

From these strong holds they will collect their tithes raise their private armies for the next battle, the one to evict the usurper Trump.

For these Pretenders in place of halberdiers, pike men and archers will be the new model armies.

Swearing oaths of fealty as did the yeomen of yore these will be tweeting technicians, trackers, pollsters, fixers......

| From the MSCNewsWire reporters desk  | Monday 16 January 2017  |

The spirit of unanimity in which the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 2334 on December 23 stands in sharp contrast to the condemnation and accusations that have dominated subsequent commentary from Israel and that country's supporters.

New Zealanders deserve to know why the issue of settlements has become so challenging, and why it came before the council in December 2016.

At the heart of this whole debate is whether we will see a future in which two states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace and security. This two state solution has been the accepted basis for resolving the Palestinian question for many decades now, enshrined in various negotiated accords and UN Security Council resolutions, and the focus for several unsuccessful attempts to broker final agreement between the parties,

The most recent attempt was led by US Secretary of State John Kerry. After showing great promise those talks broke down in 2014.

No one should underestimate the challenges associated with negotiating the terms for a two state solution. Significant compromises are required of both sides, and the domestic political challenges for both are formidable.

But there has been agreement in principle on the key components, security guarantees for Israel and a state for Palestinians based on the 1967 borders but with negotiated land swaps, including a negotiated approach to managing Jerusalem's holy sites. Resolution 2334 reinforces the international community's commitment to this negotiated outcome.

Resolution 2334 condemns the obstacles to a negotiated two state solution: incitement and acts of violence and terror against civilians of all sides, and the ongoing settlements programme which carves ever more deeply into the land available for a Palestinian state on the West Bank.

There have been some misleading and irresponsible claims made by critics of the resolution: that it somehow predetermines negotiations between the parties, affects the rights of Israelis to access certain religious sites, or changes the legal status of the West Bank. None of those claims is correct. New Zealand would not have supported it if those assertions were correct, and the US would most certainly not have allowed the resolution to pass.

The focal point for much of the critics' anger is the direct call for a halt to the settlements. But that call by the council was clear and deliberate because continuing settlement growth at anything like the current rate will render the two state solution a purely academic concept. There will be nothing left to negotiate.

The other reality is that without a two state solution, demographic and security considerations will pose a serious challenge to the future character of Israel. Kerry put it starkly in his statement the week after the adoption of Resolution 2334, "If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic - it cannot be both - and it won't ever really be at peace."

Those who doubt the seriousness of the settlements issue should read the report of the Middle East Quartet of July 1, 2016. The Quartet comprises the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States. Its report outlines in a careful and factual way the impact of ongoing settlement activity, and more recent moves by the Israeli Parliament to retrospectively legalise settlements developed in contravention of Israeli law.

In Israel this is a politically difficult topic. The settler movement is very influential in the current government, and its leaders occupy a number of key Cabinet posts.

For the whole of New Zealand's two year term on the Security Council, the Secretary-General and his Special Co-ordinator have expressed alarm that the forces of incitement and violence and the relentless progress of the settlement programme were undermining the two state solution.

Some quite exotic theories have been advanced as to why this resolution was dealt with in the final month of New Zealand's council membership. The truth is: the United States would not accept any resolution on this topic until after US presidential elections in November. The domestic politics would have been too difficult.

In late 2014 three quarters of the countries in the United Nations voted for New Zealand's election to the Security Council. They did so because New Zealand has a long standing and respected record for fairness. They also knew of New Zealand's long standing bi-partisan support for the two state solution as a basis for resolving the Palestinian question.

Against that background it would be very difficult to explain why we would not support a resolution seeking to reinforce the notion of two states living peacefully, side by side, and which called for an end to the incitement, violence and the settlements that pose such a serious threat to it.

|  Murray McCully  Foreign Affairs  | January 12, 2017  |

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