Opposition calls for AUKUS ‘reassurance’ as PM confirms ‘scheduled’ Trump meet
The Prime Minister has confirmed that he will likely meet with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Canada.
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The opposition is calling on Anthony Albanese to shore up support for AUKUS when he meets with Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Canada next week.
The Prime Minister overnight said a meeting was “scheduled” after the US President confirmed he would attend the summit.
Sussan Ley has welcomed the meeting wished him “success” in representing Australia’s interest.
“We welcome confirmation the Prime Minister will meet with the US President,” the Opposition Leader posted on social media.
“It’s in the interest of every Australian this meeting is a success and we want the Prime Minister to do well.
“It’s important the PM gains a reassurance on AUKUS and protects Australia from tariffs.”
We welcome confirmation the Prime Minister will meet with the US President.
— Sussan Ley (@sussanley) June 14, 2025
It’s in the interest of every Australian this meeting is a success and we want the Prime Minister to do well.
It’s important the PM gains a reassurance on AUKUS and protects Australia from tariffs.
The call for guarantees on AUKUS came after the US Department of Defence launched a review of the trilateral pact with Australia and the UK to ensure it aligned with Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda.
The Albanese government has brushed off concerns the move signals waning US support for the alliance with Canberra.
But with AUKUS the centrepiece of Australia’s defence strategy over the first half of this century, it has offered little reassurance.
‘Scheduled’ meeting
Speaking from Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, Mr Albanese said he expected to have his first face-to-face with Mr Trump after the pair “scheduled” a meet on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST).
“Obviously, there are issues that the US President is dealing with at the moment, but I expect that we will be able to have a constructive engagement,” he said, speaking at Amazon HQ, The Spheres.
“I look forward to building on the very constructive phone conversations that we’ve had on the three occasions that we’ve had the opportunity to talk.
“I obviously will raise tariffs. We’ll raise, as well, of AUKUS, and we will have a discussion, as two friends should.”
While he would not “make declarations” on negotiations, Mr Albanese said he would “put forward Australia’s interests respectfully”.
As it stands, Australia has been slugged with a baseline tariff of 10 per cent, plus a 25 per cent levy on aluminium and 50 per cent tariff on steel imports.
“It is also in the interests of the United States for Australia to be treated appropriately. Tariffs across the board, of course, impose an increased cost on the purchases of those goods and services,” Mr Albanese said.
“I will enter into those discussions constructively – the discussions that I’ve previously had with President Trump were constructive, but those 10 per cent tariff supports have been the minimum … that have been applied across the board.”
Although Mr Albanese has previously said he was “very confident” the AUKUS pact would continue following the Pentagon review, he added that he would continue to spruik the “range of benefits” to the US when he meets with Mr Trump.
These included allowing the US to access fuel reserves in the Northern Territory, and the Henderson Defence Precinct in Perth, which will also allow US and UK submarines to be in the water for longer and support maintenance stops.
He also noted that Australia had already invested $500m in the first phase of AUKUS Pillar I, which will allow us to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
The US’ call for Australia to increase its defence spending from current levels of 2 per cent of GDP to 3 per cent, will likely also dominate conversations.
“There are a range of ways in which Australia’s contribution to the United States … particularly in AUKUS Pillar I, is very much in Australia’s national interest,” he said.
Speaking to the greater economic relationship between Australia and the US, Mr Albanese said it was “important to recognise” that Australia has a trade surplus with the US both in terms of goods and services.
Mr Albanese is also set to speak to business leaders from BHP Ventures, quantum computing leader Diraq, Trellis Health, Airwallex and Anthropic, where he will highlight the importance of “free and fair trade” arrangements between the two countries.
“We want to grow the economic relationship between our two countries, and I’m sure that when I have the opportunity to have discussions with President Trump, we will speak about the important economic relationship between our two countries, which is in the interests of both Australia and the United States,” he said on Saturday morning, local time.
Appearing alongside Amazon Web Services (AWS) chief executive Matt Garman on Saturday morning local time, the pair announced that the tech giant would increase its investment of data centre infrastructure to $20bn between 2025 to 2029.
AWS operates three data centre zones across Melbourne and Sydney.
Mr Albanese said it was an example of how the private sector growing Australia’s economy and boosting productivity – a key goal in Labor’s second term.
“We know that AI is so important, and this investment will certainly support complex AI and supercomputing applications as well,” he said.
“It will boost Australia’s economic growth, our resilience and our productivity, it will accelerate the development of Australia’s growing data centre infrastructure and support technology adoption by Australian businesses.”
Mr Garman said the new funding commitment was the ”largest investment ever announced by a global technology provider in Australia”.
He added that AWS already had a significant presence in Australia, providing cloud hosting services for CommBank, Canva and Atlassian.
“Today in AWS, the demand that we’re seeing for cloud computing and AI is massive, and it’s remaking every single industry out there in the world, from banking to healthcare to retail … and we estimate the technology over the next decade will drive over $600bn increases in
Australia’s GDP by the year 2030.”
Anti-Trump protests
Mr Albanese’s visit to Seattle also coincided with the anti-Trump No King protests, which swamped Seattle’s CBD just hours after the Saturday morning media event.
Hoards of people carrying signs which read: “Hate does not make America great,” and “have mercy, not MAGA,” marched down 8th Ave, less than 500m where Mr Albanese spoke with Mr Garman hours earlier.
They were also heard chanting: “Hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go”.
The demonstrations coincided with the military parade in Washington DC which will mark the 250th anniversary of the US Army.
Originally published as Opposition calls for AUKUS ‘reassurance’ as PM confirms ‘scheduled’ Trump meet
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