The Prime Minister is appearing for his first post-Budget round of media interviews this morning, after Finance Minister Nicola Willis laid out plans last week to trim spending and get back to surplus by 2028/29.Christopher Luxon’s appearance also follows scathing comments from the United States’ secretary of war, claiming New Zealand is “freeloading” off the US by failing to spend enough on defence.The PM will speak with Heather du Plessis-Allan on Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking Breakfast at 7.35am. You can listen live here.Some commentators have highlighted the “heroic assumptions” required to get the books to surplus by 2028/29, with Treasury forecasting growth increasing to 2.3% of GDP in the year to June 2027 and 3.2% the following year. That is predicated on an end to the Iran war and a fall in oil prices.Over the long weekend, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told the Shangri-La Dialogue defence and security conference that New Zealand was “freeloading” off the US military.The claim came in response to a question from Kiwi journalist Anna Fifield, after Hegseth said allies that “refuse to stand up and carry their weight for our collective defence will face a clear shift in how we do business”.At the Singapore conference, Hegseth said he expected allied governments to spend 3.5% of GDP on defence. Last week’s Budget outlineed how New Zealand will boost defence spending to just over 2% of GDP over eight years.Fifield asked Hegseth if that meant New Zealand was considered a “freerider”.Hegseth said 2% of GDP was not enough, so “2% is freeloading” – though he also said New Zealand and the US’ relationship had been “a very fruitful one for a very long time”.Allies couldn’t just say: “‘Oh, we’ve been friends for a long time, so let’s work together’,” Hegseth said.“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’.”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". Defence Minister Chris Penk was in the audience.