Biden welcomes Ardern to talk trade, security and gun crime

US President Joe Biden welcomed New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to the White House Tuesday. There, the two discussed a number of topics, mostly regarding trade and security in the Pacific, but the issue of gun violence loomed large in the wake of a series of mass shootings in the United States in recent weeks.

The two leaders spoke of the need for more intense US engagement with Pacific island nations as China expands its presence both commercially and militarily. "We have more work to do in those Pacific islands," Biden said — on the same day China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi was in Tonga to sign defense and trade agreements.

An unnamed US official said: "They [Biden and Ardern] also had some fairly detailed discussion about the importance of in-person engagement with Pacific island leaders and the importance of the United States working closely with New Zealand and other partners as we continue to step up our efforts to engage more effectively in the Pacific."

The US recently seemed to have been caught flat-footed when a security pact was signed between Beijing and the Solomon Islands, greatly upsetting other Pacific neighbors and embarrassing Washington.

IPEF up and running but Pacific partners want US to rejoin TPP

Last week, New Zealand joined Biden's new 14-country Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), which he presented during his first trip to Asia as president. The deal excludes China and "presents a significant opportunity to build economic resilience in our region," said Ardern.

Still, many Pacific nations want the US to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) from which Biden's predecessor Donald Trump withdrew the US from in 2017.

Biden and Ardern also spoke of the challenges Indo-Pacific countries are facing as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and climate change. And the New Zealand leader reaffirmed her country's common cause with Washington, "in furthering the Pacific values and the focus that Pacific island leaders have determined for themselves."   

The long shadow of gun violence

One topic that overshadowed the meeting, however, was that of gun violence. Biden praised Ardern for her effective work in curbing domestic extremism and her ability to pass comprehensive gun legislation after a white supremacist with an assault rifle killed 51 Muslims at a Christchurch mosque in 2019.

In the aftermath of the shooting Ardern managed to get 119 of the country's 120 lawmakers to join her in banning military-style automatic weapons.

Ardern has also been a vocal critic of social media companies and the role they play in radicalizing users of their services. "The time has come for social media companies and other online providers to recognize their power and act on it," she said last week while delivering a commencement speech at Harvard University.

The Christchurch shooter was radicalized online and live streamed his rampage, just as a racist shooter in the US did on May 14, when he shot and killed 10 Blacks at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket.     

Biden has since joined the so-called Christchurch Call to Action that Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron launched in 2019 in an effort to get tech companies to purge violent extremist content on their platforms. Biden's predecessor Trump had refused to join the effort.

All prayer, no action when it comes to gun legislation in the US

Biden said, "the pain is palpable" as he described a recent visit that he and First Lady Jill Biden made to grieve with the families of victims in Uvalde, Texas, the site of the latest mass-fatality shooting at a US elementary school. Two teachers and 19 grade schoolers were murdered in the incident.

Texas governor Greg Abbott called the crime "inconceivable." It was the 13th mass shooting to take place in Texas since he became governor in 2015.

Biden has promised to take action but the US has not passed a major federal gun control measure since 2012, when a shooter at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut killed 26 people, 20 of whom were small children between the ages of six and seven.

Since Colorado's infamous Columbine High School shooting in 1999, more than 311,000 students have experienced gun violence at school in the US. Guns are also now the leading cause of death for children under 18 in the US. 

Though there has once again been talk of the need to do something to end gun violence in the US, expectations are extremely low that anything will in fact happen.

Ardern offered sincere condolences and said she stands ready to share anything of value to help but she noted that the US and New Zealand have "very different" political systems.

Jacinda Ardern is the first New Zealand leader to visit the White House since Barack Obama welcomed Sir John Key in 2014.

js/jsi (AP, Reuters)