agreed to \u201cexplore further opportunities to expand co-operation on critical minerals\u201d<\/a>. <\/p>\nThe Prime Minister repeated on Wednesday that no decisions had been made by Cabinet, but the Government wants to \u201cdevelop a critical mineral sector\u201d and any deal would be made \u201cin our brutal national interest\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have got discussions going on, but there\u2019s nothing as advanced as a signable contract or deal at this point in time.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wouldn\u2019t commit to publicly releasing the summary mentioned by Seymour.<\/p>\n
![\"Prime]()
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said discussions were at any early stage. Photo \/ Jason Dorday<\/p>\n
There isn\u2019t always public consultation on agreements, declarations or the like between countries. For example, ministers often announce them without fanfare while on overseas trips.<\/p>\n
But there have been calls for New Zealanders to be involved in a discussion about the potential consequences of a partnership with the United States on critical minerals, which are becoming increasingly geopolitically significant.<\/p>\n
The US\u2019 ongoing attempt to bolster its access to the minerals, which China is the largest refiner of and which are important to many energy and defence technologies, was alluded to by the Prime Minister on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Americans are looking for a supply chain of critical minerals. The Chinese have a very good supply chain. The Americans don\u2019t,\u201d Luxon said.<\/p>\n
Jane Kelsey, an Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Auckland, wrote earlier this month, prior to confirmation of the intergovernmental talks, that more information was needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo date, we have heard nothing from the Government about any demands from the Trump Administration, and it is following a softly-softly foreign policy approach to the US,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if New Zealand is a target of the latest Trump directive, there needs to be a full discussion about the implications \u2013 before, not after the fact.\u201d <\/p>\n
A memorandum filed to the Waitangi Tribunal last week also raised concerns that an agreement could \u201cbe finalised and signed without M\u0101ori, or anyone else in Aotearoa, being aware\u201d and may \u201cbreach the principles of rangatiratanga and k\u0101wanatanga\u201d (right to exercise authority and governorship).<\/p>\n
Those parties sought the tribunal \u201cto seek information urgently from the Crown to establish whether the United States Government has sought such an agreement and if so, the process for its development, the likely content, the role of M\u0101ori in that process, and the protections for M\u0101ori responsibilities, duties and interests and the Crown\u2019s obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi\u201d.<\/p>\n
Greenpeace executive director, and former Green MP, Russel Norman said New Zealand was being \u201cused as a pawn in Trump\u2019s game\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we hear that the NZ Government is in closed-room conversations with Trump to supply minerals … Is the NZ Government going to allow the waters of the west coast to be trashed, fish stocks impacted, indigenous rights violated \u2013 to fuel the US\u2019s dreams?\u201d<\/p>\n
Green Party co-leader Chl\u00f6e Swarbrick also said yesterday it was a \u201csecret deal\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen exactly did New Zealanders decide to be in Trump\u2019s corner? Luxon didn\u2019t campaign on this and he sure as anything hasn\u2019t been upfront or transparent about the process so far.\u201d <\/p>\n
![\"Deputy]()
Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour gave away that the framework had been discussed at Cabinet. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
That was rejected by Seymour this morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have an arrangement or any kind of negotiation between two governments, it could be some sort of UN declaration on saving the whales, always there is a discussion between the officials from the two governments that goes on, and sometimes it goes nowhere and sometimes it\u2019s never talked about. That\u2019s not secretive. That\u2019s just diplomacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said critical minerals are very important for economic and military applications.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also important that countries that are broadly our allies have access to those,\u201d Seymour said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving this agreement, which is non-binding, it is simply a set of guidelines that if we\u2019re going to do business with American firms, mining to get these very valuable minerals that create very high-paid jobs, then this is how we would do it.\u201d <\/p>\n
Jamie Ensor is the NZ Herald\u2019s chief political reporter, based in the press gallery at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist in 2025 for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Act leader gave that away on Ryan Bridge TODAY this morning. \u201cI\u2019ve not seen the framework. I\u2019ve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1975,16426,23999,19014,11728,6284,67447,2245,143466,16427,23472,6722,117,111,43,139,69,415,106462,29056,3109,312,16797,5433,9939,120172,3040,14443,80,151826],"class_list":["post-266553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-at","tag-christopher","tag-commit","tag-consultation","tag-critical","tag-david","tag-discussions","tag-early","tag-framework","tag-luxon","tag-minerals","tag-minister","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-prime","tag-produced","tag-proposed","tag-public","tag-says","tag-seymour","tag-stage","tag-states","tag-summary","tag-us","tag-wont","tag-zealand","tag-zealandunited"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}