It's been so much talk about whether or not you're getting a face to face meeting with journals.
I'm going to tell you when I'm out there in the real world, I do not get asked about it.
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.
We're obsessed with it.
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.
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.
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 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 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 long for a date for a meeting to be set.
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 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 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 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.
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.
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 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 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 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 defense spending.
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.
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 defense spending.
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.
So what will this mean?
Yeah, but partly why we don't focus on it is because you can look at a different arrange of different measures.
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 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 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.
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 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 these two things are so diametrically opposed.
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, 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 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 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
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.
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.
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, 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 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 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.
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?
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.
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.
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, 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
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.
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
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 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.
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 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 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 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.