Well, thank you very much. It's great to have the Prime Minister of Australia. Fantastic place and a lot of friends over there, and this is one of them right here. The prime ministers, as you know, Anthony Orberanici and he's.
Donald Trump and Anthony Alberzi have finally had their first formal meeting. And while Trump is used to a procession of world leaders going through his door, there was more at stake for Alberanzi, who's attempting to manage an increasingly
difficult relationship. In the end, the two leaders managed to strike a deal on critical minerals and keep the Orchest deal seemingly on track, but there are lingering questions about what that deal will mean for our relationship with China, as well as whether Kevin Rudd can stay on as ambassador. I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven Am Today Press Gallery journalist Karen Middleton on what went on inside the room when the two leaders met and what it
all means for the Australia US Alliance. It's Wednesday, October twenty two, so, Karen, the Trump Albanezy meeting has finally gone ahead. So when the two sat down together what happened. I think it was a very positive meeting. Johnald Trump was effusive about the Prime minister.
It's a great honor to have you as my friend. It's a great honor to have you in the United States of America.
They signed this critical minerals deal, and I'm you know, it was important that there'd be a substantive outcome the Australian government could point to, and they've been working hard on that deal. Ambassador Kevin rid in Washington's been working very hard on locking that in for But we.
Are discussing critical minerals and rare earths and we're going to be signing an agreement that's been negotiated over a period of four or five months. And it was such a good timing.
He was very positive about Anthony Alvinezy, about being a popular prime minister, that he's a good prime minister, that he was governing well, so much so that I think Anthony Albanis he actually equipped that he'd be happy to use that exchange in his campaign advertising for the twenty twenty eight elections. The other thing that the Australian government really wanted from this meeting, which was a positive sentiment
about the August submarine deal. You saw the Navy Secretary called upon to give an update.
What we're really trying to do is take the original Orchest framework and improve it for all three parties, to make it better, to clarify some of the ambiguity that was in the prior agreement. So it should be a win win for.
Everybody, and the President himself, although there was still a question about further details, he was endorsing the deal and saying it will proceed, You will get submarines and that will be a great comfort just getting that on the public record to be Australian government correct.
It shouldn't be any more clarifications because we're just going now full steam ahead buildings.
I'm sure that is a relief. But Trump wasn't positive about everyone. He certainly wasn't positive about the US ambassador, about Kevin Rudd. We heard him tell Rudd that he doesn't like him and that he never will. What is your read on that interaction and what do you think it's going to mean for Rudd's role.
So that was a fascinating and very awkward moment in the exchange. It was all lighthearted and if you watch the full exchange and listen to it, you can get the sense of the President was sort of jabbing and joking at the same time. It was a question asked by Sky News, is Andrew Clennel.
This administration with the stance on Palestine, climate change, or even things the ambassador said about you in the past.
He's trained ambassador.
I don't know anything about him. And if you said bad then maybe he'll like to apologize. I really don't know.
When the President says, oh, does he still work for you? And rud has to do a little wave, you know, and Kevin Right is hard to hear underneath, but he actually says, first thing, he says, well, it was all you know, it was some time ago. But when the President says that, Kevin Wright actually says, I withdraw those relanksositions.
But I don't like you either and probably never will go ahead.
So he did make that effort in the room at the time, and then we're told afterwards he did approach the President and say that he apologized, and the President, we are told, said words to the effect of.
All is forgiven.
So look, in the end, what you've got in that White House is a situation where you've got the president who calls the shots. But this president in particular has people around him who are very eager to fight his battles for him, and so they are taking their cues from the President. And there have been those in the
White House that have been antagonist towards Kevin Rudd. What this may do in the end is it may end up kind of calming things down a little because the president, if indeed he is saying, Okay, let's we're done now, let's forget about that, this may enable that issue to you know, have been aired and dealt with, and maybe things are actually going to be better from here.
On in.
And Karen, we spoke about the press in the room, the journalists asking Trump and Alban easy questions. There was one notable exception, though, the ABC's America's editor, John Lyons. The ABC says he applied to be one of the journalists covering that meeting, which makes sense, but that the Prime Minister's office rejected that request. And this comes obviously after Lyons asked Trump a series of questions about his
personal business dealings. Sell appropriate President Frank that a president in office should be engaged in.
So much business activity.
Well, I'm really not. My kids are running the business and you know what the activity.
Where are you from the Australian broadcasting.
The Australias. You're hurting Australia. In my opinion, you are hurting Australia very much right now. Now they want to get along with me. You know your your leader is coming over to see me. I'm going to tell them about you. You said a very bad talent, well.
Go ahead questions, which clearly irritated Trump a few weeks ago. Now, so what should we make of the Prime Minister's Officer's decision to deny Lyon's entry.
Well, it's interesting, it's not the first time that the Prime Minister's Office made a decision to exclude people like that has happened from time to time. If they have excluded John Lyons, it may also be because that program that he was asking questions about on Donald Trump's finances actually went to air on four corners before the meeting, which I'm sure the government might have preferred hadn't occurred. So maybe they've made a decision specifically to keep him
out for that reason. Going back generations, when I used to travel with prime ministers, there was often pressure from the Whitehouse to restrict the numbers who went into the Oval Office, and there was a lot of pushback from the Australian side to those suggested restrictions, and there was some success over the years in allowing all of the
traveling media to go in. Subsequently, when Tony Abbott was Prime Minister, when Julia Gillard was Prime Minister, they didn't push back as hard, and there were numbers restrictions and there were ballots held. I managed to be excluded in two of those ballots. It was interesting that I happened to me twice. I'm either really unlucky or sometimes you can be locked out of the room for reasons of numbers, sometimes because people want you to be locked out of
the room. It doesn't look under this administration like they particularly restrict numbers. He has large media contingents asking him questions. So that's one to follow up. I guess with the Australian government whether they had a particular reason for leaving John Mines outside.
Coming up critical minerals and the balancing act between China and the US, Karen. The headline news out of the Trump Albanese meeting was the eight point five billion dollar critical minerals deal.
So what's in it, Well, it's a joint investment proposition. It's involving a billion US dollars from each of the two countries. It's designed to secure the supply chain.
In about a year from now, we'll have so much critical mineral and rarer said, you won't know what to do with them. They'll be worth about two dollars. But in the meantime we're working with Australia and other countries. They're working well.
And the timing of all this is good for Australia because we've seen China, which has a sort of vicelight grip on the supply of rare earths and critical minerals around the world, announcing restrictions on its export of those kinds of minerals in recent days in response to the tariff punishment that Donald Trump has meted out to it.
And if they don't do business with US, I think China is in big trouble. I'll be honest with you. I think China is. I don't know that they even make it, I really do. I believe that they're in big trouble.
And there are something like seventeen critical minerals China is restricting the export of about twelve of them. They not only dominate the production but also the processing of them around the world. So this Australian proposed deal with the US offers the United States another source for critical minerals that helps to try and break that group with China.
It involves, in the first instance, a couple of key projects, the first one in Western Australia and then one in the Northern Territory, and the first one in the West Australian one is actually a trilateral venture involving Japan as well. So it becomes a way of those three countries in engaging on commodities that are important to the whole world and certainly important to the three countries militaries in terms
of military technology and technology generally. So, Anthony Albanezi, you'll be very very happy that it's been He says it's worth about ultimately about eight and a half billion dollars in total, and they did actually sit there at the table and sign those documents for what he calls a framework agreement.
Given what you're saying about this really being about the US trying to counter its reliance on China when it comes to these materials. Is making a deal like this with the US risking our relationship with China.
Well, this is the difficulty that Australia and the Australian government faces trying to finesse the landscape between security and military issues and trade issues. You know, we are very dependent on China still for trade and for our economic success. And what we did see recently with China making that decision about restrictions on export of minerals, that's a plus
for Australia in the context of minerals. The downside of that, though, is that the response from some in the US administration was to call on their allies and friends to decouple from China in an economic sense. Now Australia certainly doesn't want to do that, It doesn't want to go that far. So it has to balance in its relationship with the US its own economic interests and security interests around China, and it's got to balance those in its relationship with China.
You know, it's interesting that on the eve of the meeting between Donald Trump and Anthony Albanezi we saw revelations of another skirmish involving the Chinese military and the Australian military. Surveillance flights being interfered with, allegedly by Chinese military, prompting Australia to make a forceful complaint to the Chinese government.
So there is tension still on the military side, on the security side in our relationship with China, and the government is trying to walk this line between having warmed up the frozen relationship on the trade issues that existed under Scott Morrison's administration now try and balance these security questions and when there's a complicated relationship between the US and China as well.
And Trump was also asked about whether he would consider removing tariffs on Australian exports, including that fifty percent tariff on steel and aluminium. Why does America such goody tariffs ot of friends?
And well, we don't, yeah, what we do in some cases. We do in many cases because we've been treated unfairly. But actually the tariffs are very late.
The one thing is, you may he appears to not be budging on that though, So how damaging is that outcome both for the Australian economy but also for Albanezi Politically.
I think the government will probably try to cut its losses, certainly for the steel and aluminium industry.
It's not good news.
I know the Department of Foreign Affairs was pressing when Australia got a ten percent tariff overall to not make too much of a fuss about tariffs because we were getting off lightly compared to other countries. And that was certainly the message that President Trump delivered at that table with Anthony Alberanezi beside him. You know you've only got
ten percent. Other countries are a lot worse off. So look at maybe the case that the government comes out of the meeting saying, look, we got the key headline things that we were after, we'll keep working on the tariffs. He's clearly not for turning on that at this point, and you'd be happy with the outcome that you ended up getting.
And so ca. It sounds like this meeting went about as well for alban Easy as he could have hoped for. But how difficult do you think Australia's position is right now? Because on the one hand, the US is obviously an important ally to Australia, it always has been. But on the other hand, there is this deepening ideological divide between the US and a lot of Western countries, including Australia.
So how tricky is it for the government to navigate the practical part of the partnership, the submarines, the trade deals while also weighing that up.
Well, I mean, this is a this is an unusual president, and so this is a different relationship naturally between the two countries than it has been under previous administrations. For that reason, I mean, Australia has always been able to fall back on history in its relationship with the United States, and successive Australian governments have made the point that the alliance is stronger than any one administration either here or there,
that it transcends personalities. It's not like that with Donald Trump. The personality and his way of doing things is dramatically different than his predecessors. So you can't fall back on that tradition and that history anymore. And it requires a different way of thinking. I think it's a more transactional way of thinking. That's a word we use all the time in relation to Donald Trump and the US administration. But the Australian government has to argue its case more forcefully.
What it brings to the relationship, what it offers to the US administration, what the US needs from Australia, So we have to be more vigilant about it. We have to make more effort, We have to keep a closer eye on it. And what are we prepared to hold our ground on and what must we hold our ground on. It's a slightly different way of thinking about the relationship than it might have been for administration's past.
Well, Karen, thank you so much for your time. Thanks Ruby. Also in the news, the United States has sent its senior advisors to meet Israel's Prime minister in Jerusalem to discuss security challenges following a peace agreement between Israel and Tamas. Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner have met Benjamin ette Yahu after a weekend of renewed violence when Israel's military launched air strikes that Gaza's health ministry says killed at least
forty five Palestinians. Despite the escalation, both Israel and Thomas have reaffirmed their commitment to the ceasefire, and Federal Opposition leader Susan Lee is calling for Australia's ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, to resign following his exchange in the Oval Office with Donald Trump. Over comments made by Rudd in twenty twenty one in which he described Trump as a village idiot. Despite the President reportedly saying all is forgiven, Susan Lee says she's standing by her calls for Rudd
to stand down. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM. Thanks for listening.