Washington: There is no way to describe Anthony Albanese’s first proper meeting with Donald Trump as anything other than a raging success.
With one glaring exception, Albanese achieved everything he came to Washington to do: he inked a landmark critical minerals deal, secured the US president’s emphatic support for the AUKUS defence pact, and shared an apparently genuine camaraderie with Trump – who called Australia “an amazing ally”.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and President Donald Trump appeared to share a genuine camaraderie.Credit: AAP
“There’s never been any games,” Trump enthused at one point. “There are some games with other countries, but there haven’t been games with Australia.”
The meeting was moved at late notice from the Oval Office to the Cabinet Room, where the two leaders could sit next to each other to sign the agreement on critical minerals. Five months in the making, it is set to unlock $8.5 billion in rare earth mining and processing, including joint US-Australian projects, US projects in Australia and even multinational endeavours.
And, in the presence of War Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Navy Secretary John Phelan, Trump emphatically committed to the AUKUS pact, including the sale of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. In fact, Trump said the deal had been progressing too slowly, and he wants to speed it up.
On the thorny subject of defence spending, Trump went nowhere near pressing Australia to do more – even when asked about it. He said he would like all countries to do more, but “you have to do what you have to do – you can only do so much”.
He went on to praise Australia’s investments in submarine and ship infrastructure, likely a reference to the government’s recent $12 billion announcement about AUKUS-ready upgrades to the Henderson shipyard in Western Australia.
There was no immediate tariff relief in sight, with the president noting Australia already paid the lowest rate of any country. Australia maintains its position that it would like the tariffs to go, and that it supports “more trade, not more trade barriers”.
Albanese was joined at the table by Resources Minister Madeleine King, Industry Minister Tim Ayres, secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Steven Kennedy and communications director Fiona Sugden.
