US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth slams New Zealand for ‘freeloading’ on defence

New Zealand journalist and foreign affairs expert Anna Fifield – who writes the Between Giants global affairs newsletter on Substack – witnessed Hegseth making the comments and asked him if New Zealand was therefore considered a “freerider”.

Hegseth said 2% of GDP was not enough, so “2% is freeloading”.

New Zealand journalist Anna Fifield asked US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth if he considered New Zealand a “free rider” on defence and he said yes, describing spending 2% of GDP on defence as freeloading. Photo / Getty Images

He said allies can’t just say, “‘Oh, we’ve been friends for a long time, so let’s work together.’ It’s, ‘We’ve been friends for a long time so you better have the same visibility as we do, because if we don’t, our alliance is meaningless.

“And that’s the kind of realism President Trump has asked me to inject into all relationships” he said.

Hegseth also said he didn’t have anything against New Zealand and was looking forward to working with New Zealand’s Defence Minister and ”enhancing capabilities”.

“I think that relationship has been a very fruitful one for a very long time,” he said.

New Zealand journalist and foreign affairs expert Anna Fifield asked US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth if he considered New Zealand a “free rider” on defence.

In an interview with NZME after the session, Fifield said she asked the question of Hegseth after noticing that New Zealand was missing from a list of countries he named that were doing well with their defence spending.

“I asked the question, so it’s my fault that we were called out by name,” Fifield said.

“I think the question actually underscored how the US is bullying a lot of countries and leaning on them to do this and not respecting the sovereign decisions of many of these countries,” she said.

Fifield said she did not think it was embarrassing for New Zealand; rather, she just thought it was blunt.

“Hegseth said with friends we can be blunt. So I’m sure that the New Zealand Government will take this in its stride,” she said.

Defence Minister Chris Penk was in the audience at the Shangri-La Dialogue where US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth criticised New Zealand’s level of military spending.

Fifield said she was sitting behind Penk, so could not see his reaction to the criticisms from Hegseth. She said Penk spoke in the next session, where he talked about how New Zealand was stepping up and was “committed to doing our bit”.

Fifield said that, in her opinion, she did not think the Government would have social licence to increase defence spending to 3.5% of GDP.

“I think it’s a very, very big ask for the New Zealand Government to even think about such a thing,” she said.

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