Anthony Albanese entered the White House with many advantages. Not least that Donald Trump cares little about Australia.
Ten months into the president’s second coming and there’s still no US ambassador announced for Canberra, mirroring the eleven-month wait in his first term. In Trump-world, though, not having a noticeable ambassador can be an asset.
When meeting King Donald, always carry gifts. Albanese couldn’t match the British PM’s trick of handing over an elaborate invitation for the US monarch to ride in a carriage with the British monarch. More practically, Australia offered up rare minerals.
Rare minerals can have lustre and sheen, so that speaks to Trump’s glittery tastes. And a deal worth $8.5 billion was worth one of the signing ceremonies The Donald so loves. Trump and Albanese put pen to the “United States–Australia Framework for Security of Supply in the Mining and Processing of Critical Minerals and Rare Earths.”
Note a telling detail in the naming of what Albanese calls “a significant new chapter in the over seventy years of our formal Alliance.” The detail is that the seventy-year-old treaty is called ANZUS and there, as in most alliance documents, it’s Australia that comes first in the title. Thus, the annual meeting of foreign and defence ministers follows history and alphabetic order in being called AUSMIN.
In the critical minerals agreement, the US gets top billing. This is the gift brought along for the king’s pleasure, and the wrapping suits the king’s tastes. The gift offers Trump important help in his latest bout with China: his new 100 per cent tariffs on China as punishment for Beijing’s strict new controls on rare-earth exports.
A glittery gift. Billions of dollars. A signing ceremony. And help against China. Great scripting and an almost flawless show.
Widen the lens a moment to see why that was almost all Albanese had to achieve. A calm meeting in the White House glides gently by the raucous cavalcade that is Washington’s daily agenda. Consider what was making news as Albanese arrived.
At the weekend, more than five million Americans took part in “No Kings” protests against Trump. His characteristic response was to post a video showing him donning a gold crown and manning a “King Trump” plane to dump poop on the protestors. Only in Trump-world is this a normal response by a leader to his people. In the realms of flabbergast, the US is becoming used to amazing flabber from its king and hardly bothers to gasp at the gast.
The shutdown of the federal government is about to enter its third week because of the budget deadlock in Congress. The White House “government shutdown clock” says it’s all the fault of the Democrats, while Trump uses the moment to slash even harder at bits of the federal government he wants to destroy, sacking thousands of public servants.
As Trump grapples with Gaza and Ukraine, he also seems to want a quick war to overthrow Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro. He has authorised the CIA to conduct covert action in Venezuela while the US military assembles ships and troops in the Caribbean.
Poor Venezuelans. First, Hugh Chavez, then Maduro, and now Trump shapes as another strongman come to “save” them. Venezuela shares Mexico’s lament (which sounds even better in Spanish): “So far from God, so close to the United States.”
Despite such fevered headlines, I suspect many in Washington are more taken with the last burst of warm weather before the arrival of the fall frost that proclaims autumn. The trees are turning and the leaf colours are already vivid.
Across America, there’s as much interest in how the football season is going as in the strange tackles and scrimmages at the White House. At least gridiron still follows the traditional rules and rhythms.
Tough tackles and frosty weather hit with full force Australia’s ambassador to Washington Kevin Rudd as he sat at the long table in the White House with the rest of Albanese’s delegation. A pesky journalist brought up Citizen Rudd’s old comments about Trump as “village idiot” and “the most destructive president in history.”
Cue Trump to be relatively cute and only mildly cutting about Rudd: “I don’t know anything about him. If he said bad, then maybe he’ll like to apologise. I really don’t know. Did an ambassador say something bad about me? Don’t tell me. Where is he? Is he still working for you?”
Albanese: “Yeah, yeah.” Pointing to his former leader and now ambassador.
Trump: “You said bad?”
Rudd: “Before I took this position, Mr President.”
Trump: “I don’t like you either, and I probably never will.”
After the meeting, Rudd offered a fresh apology to Trump and the president responded that “all is forgiven.”
Mark this as gentle joshing compared to the abuse Trump and team heaped on Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky at the notorious White House meeting back February. The Australian delegation is putting far more weight on Trump’s repeated pledges to the cameras of his “love” for Australia and Albanese.
Back home, opposition leader Sussan Ley frothed that Rudd should quit or be fired: “When the ambassador is the punchline of the joke and the prime minister is actually laughing at him, I think it tells you all we need to know about the fact it’s probably not reasonable he continue in the role. I don’t believe he should stay in that role and to see the PM actually laughing at his own ambassador in the room when the president made a joke, I think it’s untenable.”
The realist read is that Albanese has both the first and last laugh. He gets lots of love from a meeting with Trump, signs a big deal, and gets a warm endorsement of the alliance. And the only blip is a mild wack at K. Rudd. Albo and Australia win!
Stir in a further Machiavellian interpretation. Albanese gets everything he wants from the Washington visit yet shows his independence (and enrages the federal opposition) by leaving in place Australia’s ambassador.
Now there’s a way of signalling that Australia is a firm ally that still manages to make its own foreign policy decisions. •
