Tim Groser

Wellington, May 15 NZPA - It will take patience and diplomacy to get the United States back to the table on trade talks, Trade Minister Tim Groser said today.

Speaking after talks with US trade representative Ron Kirk and the US Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern, Mr Groser said the administration of President Barack Obama was still getting itself established.

The previous administration had agreed to formal talks on a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free trade proposal involving eight countries, including the United States and New Zealand.

This was intended to build on the P4 agreement trans-Pacific trade pact between New Zealand, Chile, Singapore and Brunei.

The new administration effectively froze the trade talks when it announced a review on trade policy.

Mr Groser told NZPA that Mr Stern had only been in the job for a short-time and many officials below him had yet to be appointed.

Mr Stern had talked about a "new paradigm" for US trade policy, Mr Groser said it would be "pure speculation" to comment on the outcome of the review.

Despite this relations between the super power and New Zealand were very good.

It was a matter of continual engagement with the US at all levels and "patience".

When it came to the review "there was limit" to how much change their could be in the US position, as it would make no sense to throw out all of the seven years of work that had gone into the WTO Doha round of talks.

Mr Groser said around Washington there was a "keen appreciation" that the Asia-Pacific region would be the driver for world growth in the coming decade.

"It is a matter of who is going to drive that China or the US, or them both."

On climate change, the US Government was also undergoing a major rethink of how it treated climate change policy.

The US had put forward a very complex proposal on how to draw developing countries into the agreement being negotiated to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

It had also been holding talks with other major emitters and for small countries like New Zealand, it was matter of continual diplomacy to make sure its voice and issues were heard.

The developed nations had not had much focus on agricultural issues until now, but if they wanted to bring developing nations into climate change policy then it would have to be addressed.

How this occurred would be of crucial importance to New Zealand, Mr Groser said.

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