Jacinda Ardern announces bilateral meeting with Donald Trump next week

The pair will meet in New York when the PM visits for the United Nations General Assembly.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is set to have a bilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump at the UN General Assembly in New York next week. 

"I'm looking forward to discussing a wide range of international and regional issues with President Trump, including our cooperation in the Pacific and the trade relationship between our countries," Ms Ardern said today in a statement.

"The US is a key security partner for New Zealand, and an important trading partner. Two-way trade is over $18 billion, and there is strong support from the New Zealand business community to further strengthen our trade and economic ties."

The General Assembly meeting brings together all states from the United Nations yearly to discuss international issues. 

While there, Ms Ardern will give the keynote address at the UN Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit.

"I’ll also continue New Zealand's leadership on the Christchurch Call to Action to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online," she said.

Mr Trump and Ms Ardern first spoke when he called to offer his congratulations after she was elected to Prime Minister, and to give "warm regards" to the "people of New Zealand".

Then at the 2017 APEC meeting, a claim surfaced of Mr Trump had mistaken Ms Ardern for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's wife, Sophie Grégoire. 

She later downplayed the supposed faux on TVNZ1's Breakfast, describing the report as second-hand information. "Someone observed that they thought that it had happened, but in all my interactions certainly President Trump didn't seem to confuse me when I interacted with him," she said. 

Ms Ardern told Newsroom at the APEC summit in Vietnam Mr Trump joked, "This lady caused a lot of upset in her country".

To which Ms Ardern answered, "You know, no-one marched when I was elected". 

Shortly after, at the 2017 ASEAN summit, Ms Ardern and Mr Trump modelled traditional delegates shirts made of pineapple husks together.

During the 2018 General Assembly, Ms Ardern briefly spoke to Mr Trump at a Manhattan function he hosted.

The PM's office told media Mr Trump congratulated Ms Ardern on the birth of baby Neve and she brought up the issue of the US steel tariffs and acknowledged his work on the Korean Peninsula. New Zealand is still hit with  steel tariffs from the US , implemented last year. New Zealand was not included in the exempted countries. 

He also called Ms Ardern after the March 15 Christchurch terrorist attack to  give his condolences.

Ms Ardern requested "sympathy and love" for all Muslims. 

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