U.S. assurance on dairy deal

Press, 21 January 1984, Page 1

U.S. assurance on dairy deal

NZPA staff correspondent Washington

The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Lange, yesterday won an assurance from the American Vice-President, Mr George Bush, that a United States plan to give butter and cheese to Jamaica will be reexamined. Trade sources said the scheme could destroy New Zealand’s 40-year-old’ dairy trade with Jamaica and undermine the economics of shipping other produce to the Caribbean and to American Gulf of Mexico ports. Mr Lange, visiting Washington in the course of a world tour, talked with Mr Bush for about an hour. He said afterwards, “I am satisfied that, at the highest level, that particular undertaking will be reviewed.”

New Zealand’s Ambassador to the United States, Mr Lance Adams-Schneider, presented an aide memoire to the State Department on Thursday protesting about the plan, but sources said afterwards that his reception was frosty and that the demarche was rejected. Mr Lange said he pointed

out to Mr Bush “very simply and very calmly" that the scheme would knock out of that market New Zealand interests which had been cultivated for 40 years and would establish a precedent which, if used in other places, "could simply, one by one, pick off the interests of New Zealand in major markets for our country." They talked about the relationship of New Zealand trade with the United States economy, the Americans' economic upturn and the possibility of that having an impact in New Zealand, “particularly if those commodities which constitute the bulk of our production and of our trade with the United States are in fact, by various protective measures, locked out,” he said.

“I was able to point out the effect of that in holding back any recovery which we would be benefiting from.” Mr Lange also held talks at the Pentagon yesterday with Defence Department officials charged with overseeing the South Pacific.

“We dealt with the whole question of Pacific security,” he said. “It was not

specific to A.N.Z.U.S. It was an exposition of the U.S. view of defence arrangements and general regional stability, and as such was quite the best briefing I’ve had. It was extensive, it was frank and it had implications for New Zealand which I'll be sorting through.” Mr Lange said he briefed the Americans on the Labour Party’s views on defence and the A.N.Z.U.S. Treaty. He said he got the impression that there was “a respect for the strength of a friendship." “But there is, I believe," Mr Lange said, “a role for New Zealand in interpreting United States policy to near neighbours in the south-west Pacific, and I think a very large case for a greater degree of New Zealand advocacy of the small states’ position to the United States, because it seems to me that we are uniquely placed to do that." Mr Lange said he was certain, particularly after his talks at the Pentagon, that the United States would be more than willing, and would even show a “marked alacrity,” to accept New Zealand in that role.