Albo v Trump: Oct 20. Let’s goooooo.

Anthony Albanese has finally managed to get a meeting with Donald Trump, after months of trying. 

But why did it take so long? And what does it say about just how rocky our relationship with the US has become?

As political journalist and author of Albanese: Telling it Straight Karen Middleton reports, the Australian government has been working hard to soften the Trump administration’s attitude over many months, announcing policies favourable to them. 

At the same time, Albanese knows that downplaying his willingness to placate the US President is important to his domestic audience and that he can’t back down on his own objectives: pursuing recognition of Palestine and spruiking Australia’s clean-energy transition. 

Today, Karen Middleton on the task ahead for Albanese – and what a successful meeting with Trump would look like.

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Guest: Political journalist and author of Albanese: Telling it Straight Karen Middleton 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's been so much talk about whether or not you're
getting a face to face meeting with journals.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm going to tell you when I'm out there in
the real world, I do not get asked about it.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
The Prime Minister keeps on saying that everyone's overplaying the
fact that he hasn't managed to have a meeting, and
the media is obsessed with it, and we should all
give it a rest.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
We're obsessed with it.

Speaker 4 (00:22):
Will you have a face to face meeting with Donald Trump? Well,
when we do, you'll know about it, so it's not
booked up.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
But the truth is this is a really important bilateral relationship.
The government acknowledges that the United States is our most
important security partner, and the president has been in office
since January and was elected last November, which is coming
up for eleven months ago, and the two of them
haven't eyeballed each other yet.

Speaker 4 (00:46):
Karen Middleton is a political journalist and author of Albanesi
Telling It Straight, and while Anthony Alberanzi has been playing
down the fact that he hasn't had a one on
one meeting with Trump yet, Karen says it actually tells
us a lot about the state of the relationship between
our two countries. Now, finally, after a huge effort from

(01:07):
the Australian government, there's a date on the calendar with
the two leaders set to meet in the Oval Office
on the twentieth of October. So will it go the
way of Zelenski's meeting in the Oval Office? And how
is the Prime Minister preparing for this unpredictable face off.
I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM today

(01:30):
Karen Middleton on Albanezy Trump and what Australia stands to
win and lose. It's Monday, September twenty nine. So Karen,
given how long Trump has been in office, now, what
does it say to you that it has taken this

(01:52):
long for a date for a meeting to be set.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Well, you know, you could say he's a busy man.
He's got a long list of people who want to
see him. But I think it's hard to avoid the
conclusion that Australia was not right up there among his
top priorities. The two leaders had agreed to meet on
the sidelines at the G seven in Canada, and the
President then had to leave early because of developments in

(02:17):
the Middle East. So that's a very plausible explanation for
early departure. But he has left summits early before without
such a plausible explanation. And if you look at the
company that Albanezi was in at the bottom of the
list of meetings that Donald Trump had scheduled at the summit,
it suggests that these were all people with whom he

(02:39):
had some kind of disagreement. You know, the leaders of Mexico, India,
South Korea, and of course the president of Ukraine who
Donald Trump famously ambushed in the Oval Office earlier in
the year. These were all people with whom Donald Trump
has had skirmishes or disagreements in recent times, and all
of them, Anthony Alberanzi were the people who got their

(03:02):
meetings canceled. And on top of that, soon after the summer,
Donald Trump either spoke to or met with all of
those others, but not Anthony Albernizi. So it's hard to
avoid this conclusion that there was some kind of.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
A message in there. Okay, So, while publicly Anthony Alberzi
has been saying that not having a meeting with Trump
is not a very big deal, can we assume that
privately the government has been trying to make this meeting happen.
What do we know about what has been going on
behind the scenes to get to this point.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Well, it certainly seems that's the case. They've been looking
forward to the meeting in Canada, and I think since
then they've been trying to make sure that that a
meeting does take place. We saw the Defense Minister, Richard Miles,
who's also the Deputy Prime Minister, race off to Washington
in late August. They still haven't really explained what that

(03:56):
was about, but he did meet with Marco Rubio, the
secondary State and National Security Advisor, who's also the person
in the administration responsible for coordinating the president's bilateral meetings,
so maybe there is a clue there. He came home
and a week later there was another phone call between
the President and the Prime Minister, and it seems that

(04:17):
maybe it was that call, or even a subsequent one
that we hadn't heard about, that has locked in this
October twenty date. And since then, we've had a number
of announcements from the government that would be probably received
positively in the United States, like what, well, we know
the United States administration wants Australia to increase its defense

(04:37):
spending from somewhere around two point three percent of GDP
to three point five percent of GDP. The government has
pushed back on that and said, what we'll do is
decide what we need to acquire, what capability we need,
and we're not going to be tied to a percentage.
But since then you've certainly seen announcements that are about

(04:58):
defense spending.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
So today's investment is another way we're delivering record defense
funding to bolster Australia's capabilities. We're investing in our capability
and we're investing in our relationships.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
We saw one recently a twelve billion dollar upgrade of
the Henderson Defense Precinct in Western Australia, which is where
the Orchest submarines will be based and will be used
as a maintenance hub for American submarines as well. And
we've also seen Richard Miles start talking about using a
different metric, a different way of assessing the percentage of

(05:33):
defense spending.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
The percentage GDP number is not one that we focus on,
I mean, and partly that's because others do, sure, but
obviously the Americans do. And these are your numbers about
what it's getting to. Two point three percent.

Speaker 4 (05:46):
So what will this mean?

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, but partly why we don't focus on it is
because you can look at a different arrange of different measures.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
Meaning it says if they were using the formula that
NATO users, then we'd be up to two point eight
percent already. So you've got those two things a bit
of a hint that they are, while not wanting to
change Australian policy to suit the United States, prepared to
take some steps to appease their concerns. And we also

(06:13):
saw Penny Wong make an announcement recently on Russian sanctions.
Now Australia has sanctions against Russian ships and they're added
to a number of Russian ships that might be transporting
Russian oil. We also have a companion measure that is
a Russian oil price cap, and we certainly know that
Donald Trump doesn't like other countries buying Russian oil and

(06:35):
is wanting to push that price down. So that is
another mechanism, another announcement quietly made that won't displease the
American president. I think what they're trying to do is
to be seen to be a good ally, a good friend,
but not shift Australian policy in response to pressure. From
the United States, and it's quite a fine line to walk.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
Coming up advice for the prim Minister on how to
handle the meeting. So, Karen, as you've said, the government
has been working hard to please Trump ahead of finally
securing this meeting, but on a number of matters Albanize

(07:20):
has done the opposite. So there was the recognition of Palestine.
There was his big speech about more regulation for tech companies.
He also talked about climate change. So how do you
think that Albenze is doing it trying to balance his
own objectives and this need to have a good relationship
with the US president when a lot of the time

(07:40):
these two things are so diametrically opposed.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yes, And the tension here is because he's got a
domestic audience and then he's got this international relationship that
is important to Australia, and he knows that he has
support from home for a lot of those measures, and
support particularly for not bowing down to what Donald Trump wants,

(08:03):
not changing Australia's positions because of Donald Trump. But he
doesn't want to make him angry. He doesn't want to
unnecessarily antagonize. So he's got to now find a way
to forge a personal relationship and offer Donald Trump the
positives in the relationship. Now we know that President Trump

(08:24):
is a person who's looking for what the United States
and what he personally can achieve from these relationships, and
so Australia has to present the positive side, what orcast
will mean for the US and what mutual benefit, as
the governments would see it, those two countries can get
out of that submarine impact. What Australia can offer things

(08:47):
like you know, Australian superannuation funds and out going around
the United States saying hey, we've got a two trillion
dollar pot of money to invest in your country and
you know, in good projects. So that's something that we'll
appeal to the US president. And Australia has critical minerals
to offer. So these are the kinds of things that
Anthony Albanezi will now be presenting, not changing the Australian

(09:10):
policy and having to defend it. And I think the
suggestion is you do better as Donald Trump if you
stick to your guns in a sense and don't be
seen to be blown with the window or in weak
in any way. But saying here, this is what I
can offer you, this is what our country brings. This
is why we can work well together.

Speaker 4 (09:30):
And Albanezi has so far rejected calls from within the
Trump camp to replace Kevin Rudd as ambassador to the US.
So tell me about what Rudd has been doing and
how that's complicating the situation.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
Well, it is complicated. I mean, Kevin Rudd is a
former Prime minister, so he has higher status as an ambassador. Unfortunately, though,
there are key people in the Trump administration who don't
like him. Kevin RhD had made some very forthright comments
on social media before Donald Trump was a re elected
president that were highly critical of him in it quite
a personal way. Now they've been deleted, but they were noted,

(10:10):
and these are the kinds of things that do anger
some in the Trump administration and certainly President Trump himself.
He has said in recent days how much he's not
a forgiver of his opponents. He's a hater of his opponents,
and he's not keen on working with people he doesn't like.
So that makes it more complicated. When you talk to

(10:32):
people familiar with how Australia is regarded in Washington, many
many of them say Kevin Rud is highly regarded that
some say they don't know that anyone else could have
done a better job at trying to open doors for Australia.
He's a globally recognized expert on China who speaks Mandarin. Obviously,
the whole issue around China is the issue in the

(10:53):
region that we live in at the moment in terms
of security. So you know, he brings a lot to relationship,
but there is this problem about whether they like him
or not and whether that has made things slightly difficult.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
And so this meeting between Trump and Albanezi, it's just
a few weeks away. What kind of advice do you
think that the Prime Minister is fielding on how he
should handle it?

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Well, I'm sure he's getting plenty of free advice privately,
and he's certainly getting a lot publicly about how he
should go about it. Anthony Alberanezi himself has said, you know,
he's just going to be himself. That he likes to
think he gets on well with people, he can find
common ground, and that's what he'll be trying to do.

Speaker 4 (11:36):
Trump is notoriously unpredictable, though, So what do you think
we should expect to come out of this? Is there
any risk that we could see some kind of Zelenski
like showdown. Do you think that Alberanezi would be worried
about that possibility.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Oh, I'm sure he's worried about that possibility. And I
think there is always a risk because the President is
nothing if not unpredictable, and we've certainly seen him him
speak his mind in public to the discomfort of other
leaders when it suits him. But we've also seen him
get along with the leaders like so Kirstama in the UK,

(12:13):
who is whose politics are more like Anthony Avenesi's, who
also opposes a lot of Donald Trump's positions on big issues,
but they seem to get on well. And we've seen
in recent times that President Trump has changed his attitude
to Volodimese Elenski from Ukraine. He's now saying Ukraine could
be able to get all of its land back and
that Russia's got to stop. So, you know, he's a

(12:34):
mercurial person. He can be charming and also scathing, and
Anthony Abnezi will be trying to get a little more
of the former a little less of the latter, while
also raising issues for Australia that are going to be difficult,
like tariffs, and we've just seen huge tariffs now being
announced for the pharmaceutical industry which would really impact Australian industry.

(12:58):
So if Australia it might be able to dance around
the tariff issue and not necessarily make a thing of
it because we did reasonably well compared to other countries,
we only getting a ten percent tariff, although we did
get hit. We are getting hip of steel and aluminium terriffs.
It's hard to avoid that issue now and Anthony Ovens
he's going to have to focus a lot on how

(13:18):
to manage that. And of course the real elephant in
the room is the fact that Anthony Albaniz he've won
an election by distancing himself from Donald Trump and highlighting
the fact that his opponent was replicating Donald Trump's policies
and his government was not. That's a bit hard to

(13:38):
avoid and that's where we could run into problems and
where it could get slightly awkward if Donald Trump decides
to make an issue with it.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
Well, Karen, thank you so much for your time. Thanks Ruby.
Also in the news, Donald Trump's use of the military
on US soil is set to expand, with the President

(14:09):
saying he plans to send troops to Portland, Oregon. Trump
said immigration and customs enforcement facilities are under attack from
Antifa and that he authorizes full force if necessary. Portland
Mayor Keith Wilson rejected the claim and said there was
no need for troops in his city. Portland is run
by Democrats and is known as a sanctuary city, one
that limits cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Trump has now

(14:32):
approved the use of the military to deal with domestic
issues in Memphis, Washington, d C. And Los Angeles. And
Anthony Alberonezi has ruled out a referendum to make Australia
a republic while he is Prime Minister, despite being in
favor of an Australian head of state. The Prime Minister
reaffirmed his position on Sunday that there would only be
one referendum during his time at leading the country, the

(14:53):
Voice referendum in twenty twenty three. Speaking on the ABC's
Insiders program after meeting King Charles at Balmoral, he said,
while they did not discuss it, the King is aware
he's in favor of Australia becoming a republic. I'm Ruby Jones.
This is seven AM. Thanks for listening.