In an interview with the NBC TV channel, Ardern recalled the story by the Wall Street Journal, headlined “Meet New Zealand’s Justin Trudeau – except she’s more like Trump on immigration,” and said that she was “infuriated” by that kind of a parallel.
“That infuriated me, it infuriated me. We are a party who were at that time campaigning to double our refugee quota. We are a nation built on immigration. I am only a third-generation New Zealander. The suggestion in any way that New Zealand wasn’t an open, outward-facing country – the suggestion that I was leading something that was counter to that value – made me extremely angry,” she said.
Social media users’ opinions divided on that account: while some continued drawing parallels between Ardern and Trump, having agreed with the media outlet’s scandalous headline…
…others defended the prime minister, saying that she was nothing like Trump:
Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s Prime Minister and leader of the Labor Party, has been an advocate for a lower rate of immigration, suggesting shrinking net migrant arrivals by up to 30,000 annually, at the same time, she, however, has been pressing for increasing the intake of refugees.
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Ardern’s views on immigration have triggered some mainstream media to draw parallels between her and US President Donald Trump, who is well known for his travel ban on a number of Muslim-majority countries and his promise to build a “big, beautiful” wall along the US border with Mexico in order to reduce the number of illegal migrants.