New Zealand Greets Tillerson With Middle Fingers

New Zealand’s Fairfax Media reports:

The weather was awful and the mood of the locals wasn’t much better when US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson​ arrived in Wellington. US media travelling with Tillerson were surprised by the number of people flipping the bird at Tillerson as his motorcade sped through town.

New York Times correspondent Gardiner Harris said he had been in a lot of motorcades but even he was taken back by the negative reaction. “I’ve been in motorcades for a couple of years now … I’ve never seen so many people flip the bird at an American motorcade as I saw today,” Harris said.

Harris wasn’t the only one who noticed – US protection officers travelling by with Tillerson were overheard joking about the “warm” Wellington welcome.

Tillerson’s trip coincides with a Stuff/Massey survey of nearly 40,000 Kiwis which shows US president Donald Trump is deeply unpopular. And Prime Minister Bill English conceded Trump’s unpopularity made it more difficult for the US to exercise leadership.


(Tipped by JMG reader BK)