Politicians come and go – US-Aus alliance will endure, Kevin Rudd says

Kevin Rudd says while politicians would come and go, the Australian-US relationship is built on common values.

Kevin Rudd has called for a “collective deep breath” over speculation about the future of the Australian-US alliance, saying while politicians would come and go, the relationship built on common values and interests would endure.

Speaking at the Semafor World Economy Summit in Washington DC, Mr Rudd said he was confident Australia would strike a trade deal with the US but warned a continued Chinese/American tariff war would have enormous economic consequences.

Mr Rudd, Australia’s Ambassador to the United States, also revealed there had been promising deep engagement with the Trump administration on tariffs but would not speculate on how long it could take to reach an agreement.

Ambassador Kevin Rudd and Amna Nawaz, Co-Ahchor, PBS News Hour speak on stage during The Semafor 2025 World Economy Summit in Washington. Picture: Getty Images for Semafor

Asked about fears for the future of the broader alliance, Mr Rudd said Australia was an “all-weather ally and strategic partner of the US” and had been for decades, pointing to the “solid state” of partnerships including AUKUS, the Five Eyes Alliance, Quad and the free trade agreement.

Questions have hung over the alliance since Donald Trump returned to the White House driving an America-first agenda that has seen him turn on allies including Canada and Ukraine.

“Having been a Prime Minister of (Australia) myself in the past, it’s my melancholy duty to report that politicians come and go but alliances, relationships, when they’re based on common values and common interests are enduring,” he said.

“And so therefore, I think we need to take collective deep breath about these things, and I’m sure that’s the position of both the major political parties engaged in the Australian election at present.”

Ambassador Kevin Rudd on stage during The Semafor 2025 World Economy Summit in Washington. Picture: Getty Images for Semafor

Mr Rudd, who said he was speaking in a “private scholarly capacity” rather than as Ambassador, said it was critical the US and China found an “off ramp” to the bitter trade dispute.

The US and China have increasingly hit one another with punishing retaliatory tariffs in recent weeks, sending shockwaves through the global markets.

Mr Trump has sought to de-escalate in recent days, expressing a willingness to reduce some duties, but a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry described reports of progress in negotiations as “groundless as trying to catch the wind”.

“The downstream consequences of any further bifurcation of the two economies and the supply chain impact will be enormous,” Mr Rudd said.

“The inflationary impact will be enormous, the disruption to the global economy will be enormous.

“So it is in our collective interest for this particular negotiation to get underway.”

Asked whether Australia’s decision to decline an offer from Beijing to work together to counter US tariffs was reflective of our trade priorities, Mr Rudd likened it to “walking and chewing gum at the same time”.

“And we are chewing gum with America, we’re walking with China, or we are doing the reverse, but we understand that both these economies are extraordinarily significant,” he said.

“These economic relationships are complex, but anyone who seeks to turn this into a binary, I think, will have great difficulty, given how intermeshed the economies of not just Australia and the United States and China, but the rest of the Indo Pacific…”.

Australia, like much of the world, is currently subject to Mr Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs of 10 per cent on exports of goods to the US and 25 per cent on steel and aluminium.

“We are deeply engaged with our friends and partners in the administration, all the relevant cabinet secretaries, we’ve been that way engaged for some months now, and so we have optimism that we’ll be able to land an arrangement in time,” Mr Rudd said.

“But the US is currently juggling multiple negotiations with many countries at the moment, and Australia is in the middle of its own general election.”