Politics
New Zealand’s diplomatic breakaway
LOS ANGELES — In many World Cup host cities, competing teams also find themselves jostling for soft-power supremacy around their matches. But before its first match tomorrow in Los Angeles, New Zealand has had the diplomatic landscape all to itself.
New Zealand is scheduled to face Iran, which has not had formal diplomatic relations with the United States since 1980. Even as President Donald Trump claims an end to the countries’ monthslong war is at hand, Iran will be competing in the World Cup under severe travel restrictions. The team has been forced from its original Tucson training camp to Tijuana, and is being forced to effectively commute to its matches in the U.S. without a full government delegation.
That has left New Zealand alone in pressing its off-field agenda in Los Angeles. On Sunday evening, New Zealand consul-general Katja Ackerley opened her Brentwood mansion to a “New Zealand on the World Stage” networking reception sponsored by the government agencies overseeing the country’s trade, sport and foreign-investment portfolios.
“It’s all about soft power, it’s all about person-to-person,” said Peter Miskimmin, the government’s head of sports diplomacy. “We are building relations through sport rather than bringing up arms against one another.”
The country’s Los Angeles diplomatic outpost typically focuses on promoting exports of wine and lamb, expediting visas for Hollywood personnel traveling for location shoots and addressing the perpetual crisis of “Kiwis losing their passports in Las Vegas,” as one previous inhabitant of the office put it.
A delegation of New Zealand officials was preparing for their first World Cup appearance since 2010 uncertain whether any of their opposite numbers from Iran would attend, and how that might affect the standard match-day pageantry.
“This is our first World Cup in 16 years so we can’t tell what’s different,” said James Wear, a general manager of the New Zealand Football Association. “We don’t have anything to compare.”
Around a hundred Samurai Blue superfans crowded the Old Ambassador’s Residence at the Japanese embassy in Washington, on Sunday for a watch party marking its World Cup opener against the Netherlands.
The supporters — a motley group including erstwhile English teachers in Japan, state department workers and embassy staffers — lounged around a projector set in the building’s front room, plates piled high with nigiri. Drinking Kirin Ichiban lager and Asahi Super Dry, they winced when the Dutch team had the ball in the opposing third and burst into cheers and sang “Vamos Nippon” when Daichi Kamada’s header tied the game in the 89th minute.
“The World Cup itself is a competition,” said Masatsugu Odaira, the embassy’s minister of public affairs, at the watch party. “But from the perspective of policy and diplomacy, it’s a very good chance to connect people across borders.”
At the event, Blue Light News spoke to soccer fans who are already excited about Japan’s growing diplomatic footprint and soft power projection. And they hope the World Cup will buoy that cultural momentum, stimulating tourism — one of the nation’s most lucrative sectors — and drawing eyes to Japan.
The World Cup is “just a visceral way to connect people who have not yet had the opportunity to travel to Japan to be swept up in the enthusiasm of an international competition,” said Andrew Wylegala, president of the National Association of Japan-America Societies.
Japan is already “at the top of its game” in terms of soft power projection, Wylegala added — and “soccer now fits in with that.”
Embassy staff wore pink shirts with the American and Japanese flags on the back. “Together We Bloom,” they read.
The end result, a 2-2 draw against the Dutch, the world’s eighth ranked international side, only added to their enthusiasm.
The women’s team has a far more prolific record. Fans still hark back to their 2011 World Cup final victory over the U.S., months after a massive earthquake and tsunami slammed the country.
But the men’s team has won just seven World Cup games in its history. Japan’s best-ever finish: The round of 16, where they’ve fallen four separate times.
But there’s hope that, this year, the underdogs could pull off an upset. From Ajax’s Takehiro Tomiyasu to Kamada, a Crystal Palace midfielder, the Samurai Blue have more than enough talent to compete with the sport’s upper crust.
Odaira’s hope for this year? “Oh, becoming a champion,” he said.
No European country has infuriated Donald Trump more than Spain. Now it’s desperate to win his World Cup.
Teenage superstar Lamine Yamal, Rodri and co. enter the tournament as joint favorites alongside France. With the U.S. president apparently intent on making this a World Cup that projects his personal influence and America’s soft power, victory would be sweet for Spanish soccer fans — but especially so for their prime minister.
Outspoken socialist leader Pedro Sánchez, a supporter of Atlético Madrid, has clashed spectacularly with Trump over the Iran war, but also regarding NATO spending and Israel’s assault in Gaza. Meanwhile their policies on issues from energy to immigration could hardly be further apart.
Read the full story about the failing Washington-Madrid relationship here.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in the state’s rancorous GOP gubernatorial runoff, aligning the popular governor with President Donald Trump on their preferred candidate.
Kemp’s last-minute public blessing of Jones on Sunday night comes just days before the Tuesday election and marks his clearest effort yet to shape the race to succeed him in the governor’s mansion, after months of staying on the sidelines of one of Georgia’s highest-profile political contests.
It’s also a new point of agreement between Kemp and Trump, who just hours earlier sided against the governor’s handpicked candidate in the Georgia Senate runoff.
The endorsement could boost Jones as he faces off against Rick Jackson, who has poured millions of his own money into the race, making it among the most expensive gubernatorial primaries on record.
Kemp said Jones “has been a strong, trusted ally in those victories for the people of our state” in a post on X. “Burt knows how to get things done as governor because that’s what he has done as a state senator and as your Lt. Governor,” he wrote.
Kemp did not mention Jackson in his endorsement post, but he took aim at the Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms, who has faced questions over her rocky tenure as Atlanta’s mayor but ultimately clinched a resounding victory in the May Democratic primary.
The governor was the subject of ads from both Jones and Jackson in the final days of the GOP runoff. An ad implying Jackson had Kemp’s endorsement “definitely didn’t help Rick,” one person familiar with the governor’s thinking said.
Tuesday’s runoff between Jones and Jackson has become a test of Trump — and now Kemp’s — political influence in the perennial battleground, fueled by an unprecedented influx of campaign spending. Jackson has spent $100 million of his own money, and has seen a rise in the polls. A recent Cygnal Political analysis showed Jackson with a 12-point lead, while a recent CivicLens Research survey found Jones ahead by roughly 10 points, foreshadowing a close battle to the finish.
Jones finished first in the primary last month with 38 percent, while Jackson earned 32 percent of the vote.
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