During a 35-minute discussion, Trump repeatedly referred to his guest as a friend and seemed to express support for the AUKUS agreement. However, he remained firm on maintaining Australia’s current tariff rates and took a jab at former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who was present at the meeting.
After several months of attempts to arrange a face-to-face meeting, Albanese and Trump finally shook hands outside the White House on Monday morning (early Tuesday AEDT). They then proceeded to the cabinet room, accompanied by Trump’s senior officials.
Concerns quickly dissipated as Trump expressed his affection for Australia and praised Albanese as “highly respected” and “very popular.”
When asked to compare his rapport with Albanese to that with former leaders Scott Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull, Trump said, “I think he’s doing a really good job, and we’ve had a very good relationship.”
“I don’t want to compare one with the other, but I’ll tell you this, they have a great prime minister,” Trump added.
Albanese humorously remarked that he might use Trump’s compliment in his 2028 re-election campaign ads.
“We are great friends and we’re great allies, and this is a relationship that’s been forged in the battlefields of the world,” Albanese said.Â
“We have stood side by side for freedom and democracy.”
There was an awkward moment when Trump was asked by a reporter whether ambassador to Washington Kevin Rudd’s criticisms of him in the past had played into the long wait for an in-person meeting with Albanese.
When the former prime minister took the job of ambassador, he deleted some old social media posts, including one in which he called Trump “the most destructive president in history”.
Trump said he didn’t “know anything about” who the reporter was referring to and asked Albanese where he was and if he still worked for him.
When Albanese pointed out the former Labor leader sitting across from Trump at the cabinet table, Trump asked Rudd if he “said bad”, to which Rudd replied, “before I took this position, Mr President”.
“I don’t like you either and I probably never will,” Trump replied.
It’s understood Rudd apologised to Trump after the cameras left the room.
One of Canberra’s leading concerns heading into the meeting was the status of AUKUS, a defence agreement with the US and UK under which Australia will acquire nuclear-powered submarines.
There were concerns the Pentagon would torpedo the pact when a review headed by known AUKUS sceptic Elbridge Colby, Trump’s undersecretary for war policy, was launched in June.Â
When Trump was asked about the pact earlier this year in a meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, he responded with, “What does that mean?”
On Monday, he said the process was moving along “very rapidly, very well”.
Asked if he could guarantee Australia would be getting the submarines, amid concerns about manufacturing delays in the US, he said, “oh it’s getting them, no they’re getting them”.
Secretary of the Navy John Phelan said all three parties were working to “clarify some of the ambiguity” that was in the original AUKUS deal, in what he said “should be a win-win for everybody”.
Asked if he would consider expediting the delivery of the submarines, Trump said, “we are doing that”.
Australian officials didn’t make any serious noises about winning a tariff reduction out of this meeting and Trump didn’t give any reason to raise those low expectations.
“I will say this, Australia pays very low tariffs. Very, very low tariffs,” he said, when asked if he would consider dropping the 10 per cent tax on Australian imports.
“Australia pays among the lowest tariffs.”
Critical minerals deal signed
While the meeting was ostensibly about a critical and rare earths minerals supply agreement the leaders signed in front of the camera, they didn’t spend a lot of time talking about it beyond Albanese describing it as an $8.5 billion pipeline, with the US and Australia to chip in $1 billion in the next six months.
The deal itself says that money is for financing projects both in Australia and the US and outlines extremely broad plans to accelerate free and fair markets to develop “resilience and security of critical minerals and rare earths supply chains”.
Trump threatened Beijing with even more tariffs if it manipulated the global market for rare earths, while also saying China had treated the US with “great respect” and boasting of a good relationship with President Xi Jinping.
Trump also confirmed that Albanese had invited him to Australia and that he considered the trip a “real possibility”.
