PM insists ‘perfect relationship’ with Trump amid chemistry concerns

Anthony Albanese is fending off concerns about Australia’s relationship with the incoming Trump administration.

Anthony Albanese is fending off concerns his government could be in for a rocky road when Donald Trump returns to the White House next year.

The US president-elect has said he would slap blanket tariffs on foreign imports, which the Treasury has warned would impact Australia.

Concerns have also been growing about Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, who has dealt scathing criticisms against Mr Trump in the past.

The Prime Minister himself has been recently caught out making unflattering comments about the incoming US president.

But Mr Albanese on Tuesday dismissed concerns, saying Mr Trump had called their early relationship “a perfect friendship”.

“I have congratulated, on behalf of the Australian Labor Party the president-elect, Donald Trump in a terrific discussion last week,” he told reporters.

“He described the relationship we would have a perfect friendship and I am very confident the relationship between Australia and United States will continue to be very strong.”

Concerns about their future working relationship were sparked by an old video that resurfaced a day before the US election last week.

The video from 2017 shows Mr Albanese saying Mr Trump “scares the sh*t out of me and I think it’s of some concern the leader of the free world thinks that you can conduct politics through 140 characters on Twitter overnight.”

Mr Rudd has called the incoming US president “nuts”, the “most destructive president in history” and a “traitor to the West”.

A recently unearthed video from 2021, the Ambassador called Mr Trump a “village idiot.”

Mr Trump has called Mr Rudd “nasty” and “not the brightest bulb”.

“If he’s at all hostile, he will not be there long,” the former president said in an interview earlier this year.

Despite the apparent friction, senior members of the Albanese government have brushed off fears Mr Rudd may not be able to serve Australia’s best interests in Washington under a Trump administration.

Call for face-to-face

Mr Trump’s historic White House win has sent shockwaves across the globe, with world leaders wondering what a second Trump presidency could mean for international trade and security.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham has called on Mr Albanese to meet with Donald Trump sooner rather than later “to ensure Australia is as well positioned as possible”.

“Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump have never met,” he told Sky News.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham says Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should meet with Donald Trump as soon as possible. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“Keir Starmer, the UK’s Prime Minister, seized the initiative a couple of months ago and while he was in the US along with Narendra Modi from India, they went and saw Donald Trump as a candidate and made sure they were forging those relations.

“There’s an opportunity here for Anthony Albanese to seek that meeting, to do so early, and it would clearly be in Australia’s interest for him to show that initiative and that drive.

“The Albanese government should be doing all it can to try to get Anthony Albanese in the door for an early meeting with Donald Trump.”

Mr Albanese has responded to Senator Birmingham’s comments, saying the Coalition frontbencher “never has much constructive to say”.

“Simon Birmingham does two things. One, he says I do too many trips. And secondly, he says I should do more,” Mr Albanese told reporters.

“Simon Birmingham is someone who never has much constructive to say at all.

“I had a really constructive discussion with President-elect Trump last week. It was a very good beginning to our relationship.”

Meanwhile, Peter Dutton has also weighed in, telling reporters the “onus” was on Mr Albanese to negotiate with the US to ensure Australia was not hit with Mr Trump’s proposed levies, referencing efforts by former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to exclude Australia from global steel and aluminium import taxes.

“Now, the onus will be on the Prime Minister to negotiate a similar outcome with the Trump administration, and that will be a question for him as to whether or not they’re able to craft that,” the Opposition Leader said.

Mr Dutton added that he believed the US had chosen a more isolationist approach, and the Albanese government needed to “course correct” and “make sure that they’re working with and not against our most important ally”.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says the Albanese government needs to ‘course correct’ so it can work with a Trump White House. Picture: NewsWire / Linda Higginson

“The Prime Minister says that we live in the most precarious period since the Second World War, but we need to have a very strong and trusted relationship with our Five Eyes partners including the United States,” he said.

The Coalition’s call came a day after Treasurer Jim Chalmers warned that Australia “wouldn’t be immune” from trade tensions sparked by Mr Trump’s geo-economic ideas.

The incoming US president has said he would slap blanket tariffs of up to 20 per cent on all foreign imports in a bid to usher in a new age of American manufacturing

He has also said he would impose a levy of up to 100 per cent on goods from China, which is considered the main threat to Western economic and military dominance.

Senator Birmingham said a test of how well Australia was positioned to work with a Trump White House was “whether our economy gets the same type of treatment under the second Trump administration that it did under the first administration when there was a Coalition government in Australia”.

“Our government was able to secure exemptions for Australia from Trump tariffs,” he said.

“Can Labor do the same? That is a very early but significant test for them.”

The US is among Australia’s closest allies, with deep trade and security ties spanning decades.

Senior government ministers have stressed that bilateral relationship runs deeper than governments of the day.