Författare: Chris Ogden Associate Professor in Global Studies University

Some have said Christopher Luxon’s pledge to get a free trade deal between New Zealand and India over the line in his first term as prime minister was overly optimistic. But not all trade deals are the same, and Luxon may yet get to claim bragging rights.

Already he is managing expectations, saying a “good” deal will be better than waiting a long time for a “perfect” one. And with formal negotiations confirmed not long after Luxon touched down in New Delhi, we can perhaps expect genuine movement.

At the same time, India’s negotiating style is notoriously rigid, with its bilateral investment treaty model having proved a stumbling block to deals with many other nations or blocs, including the United Kingdom and European Union.

New Zealand first held formal negotiations with India over a decade ago. But talks derailed in 2015 over the inclusion of dairy products in any agreement. We can be fairly sure this will be the compromise Luxon’s government is ready to make now.

One model might be Australia’s Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement, which leaves out dairy, too. And New Zealand was able to sign a free trade deal with China in 2008 that excluded diary, with those restrictions removed in a 2022 upgrade.

Beyond the economic implications, of course, lie domestic political calculations. Luxon needs a win to counter flatlining poll numbers and speculation about his leadership future. Good news in India offers just that.

Playing the Indo-Pacific card

Using diplomatic language that plays up New Zealand being part of the Indo-Pacific region – rather than the traditional Western alliance – will be essential.

New Zealand – despite its relatively small size – is still a significant regional player, with the Indo-Pacific’s fourth highest GDP per capita.

In the context of an imminent “Asian Century”, and the region becoming a crucial zone for economic and military power, New Zealand also provides a strategic pathway into the Pacific, where India is becoming increasingly involved.

All of this will influence Luxon’s keynote address today at the 10th Raisina Dialogue, India’s flagship multilateral conference on global politics and economics. He is the first leader not governing a European country to make such a speech, and is also the chief guest at the dialogue.

Luxon is already on the record as saying New Zealand and India are “very aligned” on Indo-Pacific security and concerns over Chinese regional influence, with scope for more joint defence exercises. This linkage between security and trade mirrors Wellington’s recent relations with Beijing, which have become increasingly difficult to navigate.

Solid foundations

But there is a long way to go. In 2024, India-New Zealand trade was worth a combined NZ$3.14 billion – a fraction of the $208.46 billion generated by trade with China in the same year.

Nevertheless, Luxon and his ministers have made undeniable progress. His “recalibration of a relationship that has long been neglected” bore fruit in October last year when he met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the ASEAN summit, and the countries announced their intention to take the relationship to “greater heights”.

The previous Labour government helped set the scene with a succession of high-level diplomatic visits and parliamentary exchanges. In 2023, the Indian government described relations with New Zealand as having “an upward trajectory”.

And there are clearly good foundations to build on – especially the 292,000 people of Indian ethnicity in New Zealand, who contribute US$10 billion to the New Zealand economy.

Great expectations

Trade is ripe for expansion, too. New Zealand primarily exports wool, iron and steel, aluminium, fruits and nuts, wood pulp and recovered paper, and imports Indian pharmaceuticals, machinery, precious metals and stones, textiles, vehicles and clothing.

There’s potential to grow trade with India in tourism (especially attractive to India’s growing middle class), and collaboration on space technology, renewable energy and agritech.

There were 8,000 Indian students in New Zealand last year, a number that may well grow given a relative drop in student numbers from China. With the US and UK becoming more hostile to immigration, New Zealand can offer a relatively safe and tolerant alternative.

In many ways, India is the new China. In 2023, India’s GDP was US$14.54 trillion, making it the world’s fourth largest economy. New Delhi is on the cusp of becoming a great power, and is being courted by all countries, big and small.

As such, while Luxon has momentum on a trade deal, he is also part of a long queue. Given the relative power imbalance between the two countries, the weight of expectation sits squarely on his shoulders. Läs mer…

When Donald Trump’s benefactor and cost-cutter-in-chief Elon Musk recently supported a call for the United States to quit NATO and the United Nations, it should perhaps have been more surprising.

But the first months of the second Trump presidency have already seen key parts of the current international order undermined. Musk’s position fits a general pattern.

Aside from the tilt towards a multipolar world order, the US now refuses to recognise the International Criminal Court, has slashed its foreign aid contributions, and has withdrawn from the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Council and the Palestinian relief agency UNRWA.

With Trump’s domestic politics displaying a clear autocratic edge, the rejection of the founding principles and ideals of the UN comes into sharper relief. The intolerant and impatient negotiating approach he displayed with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky also belies a disregard for cooperative and consensus-based diplomacy.

The drive to slash the federal deficit dovetails with this general abandonment of expensive international commitments. If the Trump regime follows through on its apparent strategy of manufacturing crises to advance its agenda, then leaving the UN entirely is a logical next step.

Undermined ideals

This is all in stark contrast to the central role the UN has traditionally played within the US-led international order since 1945.

Along with other institutions, the UN allowed the US to shape the international system in its own image and spread its domestic values and interests across the world. Along with NATO, the UN was designed as a global security institution to produce global stability.

In theory at least, the political and economic values of the US and other democracies enabled the construction of the postwar order. According to political scientist John Ikenberry, this was based on “multilateralism, alliance partnerships, strategic restraint, cooperative security, and institutional and rule-based relationships”.

But by the 21st century, US actions had undermined many of these principles. The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 bypassed the authority of the UN, causing then secretary-general Kofi Annan to declare that “from the charter point of view [the invasion] was illegal”.

This undermined the legitimacy of the UN and America’s place within it. But it also diminished the organisation as a force for maintaining international security and national sovereignty in global affairs.

The subsequent human rights violations by the US through its use of rendition, torture and detention at facilities such as Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib further weakened the UN’s credibility as a protector of liberal international values.

The US has also been a regular non-payer of UN fees, owing US$2.8 billion in early 2025. And it is one of the lowest contribtuors of military and police personnel to UN peacekeeping operations, despite paying nearly 27% of the overall budget.

US soldiers topple a statue of Saddam Hussein: the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 undermined UN legitimacy.
AAP

US versus UN

Since the 1990s, several Republican politicians have argued for the US to withdraw entirely from the UN. In 1997, senator Ron Paul introduced the American Sovereignty Restoration Act, aimed at ending UN membership, expelling the UN headquarters from New York and ending US funding.

Although it received minimal support and never reached committee hearings, Paul reintroduced the act in every congressional session until his 2011 retirement. It was then taken up by other Republicans, including Paul Broun and Mike Rogers.

In December 2023, senator Mike Lee and representative Chip Roy led the introduction of the “Disengaging Entirely from the United Nations Debacle (DEFUND) Act”.

Roy referenced the perceived negative treatment of Israel, the promotion of China, “the propagation of climate hysteria” and the US$12.5 billion in annual payments. Lee added:

Americans’ hard-earned dollars have been funnelled into initiatives that fly in the face of our values – enabling tyrants, betraying allies, and spreading bigotry.

Public polling in 2024 also showed only 52% of Americans had a favourable view of the UN. This opposition has deeper historical roots, too.

In 1920, US isolationists blocked the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, and with it US participation in the League of Nations (the predecessor to the United Nations). Although the US would interact with the League of Nations until the UN’s formation in 1945, it never became an official member.

Criticism of the UN also has a bipartisan angle, with the US withdrawing funding of UNRWA in 2024 during Joe Biden’s presidency after Israel accused the agency of links to Hamas.

A diminished UN

If Trump harnesses these historical and modern forces to pull the US out of the UN, it would fundamentally – and likely irrevocably – undermine what has been a central pillar of the current international order.

It would also increase US isolationism, reduce Western influence, and legitimise alternative security bodies. These include the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which the US could potentially join, especially given Russia and India are both members.

More broadly, the reduced influence of the UN will endanger general peace and security in the international sphere, and the wider protection and promotion of human rights.

There would be greater unpredictability in global affairs, and the world would be a more dangerous place. For countries big and small, a UN without the US will force new strategic calculations and create new alliances and blocs, as the world leaps into the unknown. Läs mer…