‘Aluminium Albo’ has blueprint to test Trump’s mettle

When the American author Bill Bryson turned his gaze towards Australia at the turn of this century to pen his international bestseller, Down Under, his starting point was the utter irrelevance of its leaders. “Flying into Australia, I realised with a sigh that I had forgotten again who their prime minister is,” was his withering opening line. “My thinking is that there ought to be one person outside Australia who knows.”

Will Trump appoint Albanese as a champion of aluminium? Credit: Simon Letch

Whether wittingly or not, Bryson was onto something in linking the name recognition of prime ministers with the broader question of Australia’s diplomatic clout. Much was made of Jimmy Carter calling Malcolm Fraser “John” when in 1977 the then-president greeted him at the White House (John was Fraser’s Christian name). Back in 1971, Richard Nixon reportedly asked Billy McMahon how to pronounce his name. “Malcolm Trumble” was how Donald Trump’s first press secretary Sean Spicer referred to Malcolm Turnbull, who was also misidentified by the White House as “the president of Australia”. Joe Biden, evidently struggling to recall the name of Scott Morrison, called him “that fella Down Under” when in 2021 they announced the AUKUS deal.

This week, at least, Anthony Albanese avoided becoming the object of presidential belittlement. Gaining a temporary reprieve from Trump over the imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminium imports cannot be presented as a diplomatic triumph. Albanese could be forgiven, though, for placing the daintiest of feathers in his Rabbitohs cap for avoiding abject humiliation. Trump even described him as “a very fine man”, a plaudit that makes it harder to portray Albanese as a weakling who fluffed his talking points.

Imagine the headlines, not to mention the barbs from Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, had Trump treated Albanese with contempt. Going into the call, that was a real fear at the top of government. In the Trump era, close US allies have often been disparaged, as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and the former UK prime minister Theresa May, can attest.

Clearly the 40-minute conversation with Trump went better than Turnbull’s famous call in 2017, with its angry clash over the refugee resettlement deal agreed with Barack Obama. As subsequent events proved, however, Turnbull’s unyielding approach provided a blueprint in how to negotiate with Trump. Don’t be bullied. Don’t rely on sentimentalism, such as the romantics of battlefield mateship. Sycophancy generally gets punished. Above all, make arguments based on US self-interest, the native tongue of “America First”.

Later in 2017, at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Turnbull added to the “Trump user guide” in making the case for Australian steel and aluminium getting tariff exemptions. Inside the president’s travelling SCIF (Secure Communications Information Facility), Turnbull contended that almost all Australian steel imports were rolled coil turned into roofing materials – mainly Colorbond – in California. So it was cheaper to ship it across the Pacific rather than haul it cross-continent from Midwest US steelmakers. Helpfully, the former real estate tycoon used Colorbond in some of his building projects in Brooklyn.

This time, Australia benefited from another point of personal connection: Trump’s penchant for jetliners. “They’re rather far away and they need lots of airplanes,” said Trump of the land Down Under, without realising the irony. Albanese has been derided, after all, for excessive long-haul travel, and also Qantas perks. This week, however, “Airbus Albo” became “American aircraft argument Albo,” which helped protect Australia from Trump’s protectionism. Now the challenge is to turn a temporary reprieve into a proper carve-out.

Unquestionably, Albanese faces a tougher task than Turnbull. America’s 47th president is even more unpredictable that the 45th version, as evidenced by his masterplan for a US takeover of Gaza. His love affair with tariffs, dating back to when Japan rather than China threatened America’s economic hegemony, is more passionate. In America’s 25th leader, William McKinley, Trump has discovered a new presidential soulmate. McKinley, who pushed for tariffs in the 1890s first as a congressman then as president, was known as the “Napoleon of Protection”.

Trump’s Commerce Secretary will be Howard Lutnik, the billionaire CEO of the financial services giant Cantor Fitzgerald and a fellow McKinley fan. Speaking at Trump’s pre-election Madison Square Garden rally, Lutnik claimed America was at its greatest when McKinley was president. “Our economy was rocking,” he declared. “We had no income tax, and all we had was tariffs.”

Malcolm Turnbull with Donald Trump in the Oval Office in 2018.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Both Trump and Lutnik, moreover, are close to Peter Navarro, a trade hawk with razor-sharp talons, who is now a senior counsellor in the new administration. On CNN this week, Navarro claimed Australia was “killing the aluminium market”, a Trump-sized exaggeration. But here, the success of Turnbull in winning exemptions in 2018 actually might boomerang on Albanese. The following year, aluminium exports surged to their highest level over the past decade. In a White House where the president is frequently influenced by the last person to have his ear, the Australians regard Navarro as public enemy number one. Countering his influence is central to their game plan.

In their “who’s who in the zoo” spreadsheets, a meticulously prepared power map of Trumpworld, Australian diplomats are more confident of dealing with Trump’s new trade representative, Jamieson Greer, a former Air Force lawyer and evangelical Christian closely involved in the first trade war in China.

On the Australian side, “Albo” cuts a wholly different figure than Malcolm. Trump developed a grudging respect for his fellow waterfront property owner, partly because he was wealthy, and partly because of his legal background – in Hamburg, Trump introduced Turnbull as “the best lawyer in the world” who “kept my friend Kerry Packer out of jail”.

Back then, Team Australia was also more MAGA-friendly. In the clubbable Joe Hockey – a term that applied both to his bonhomie and golf handicap – Australia had an ambassador who made himself right at home in Trump’s Washington. By contrast, Kevin Rudd comes with that unhelpful back catalogue of Trump barbs – something he shares in common with Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Rudd’s forensic command of detail, not to mention his relentlessness, is seen within the government as a vital asset. Rudd is not only making the best arguments to the right people, it is said, but hunting down the right people and working every angle. Business leaders, governors, members of Congress. Besides, ultimately it will be the relationship between the present prime minister and president that counts.

The concertinaed timetable of a one-month deadline to avoid exemptions is problematic. Here, it does not help that cabinet officials such as Lutnick have not yet been confirmed by the Senate. Even getting face-time with new appointees can be tricky. “It’s bloody tough,” says a former DFAT official, “because everyone wants a piece of them.”

Missing this time around are friends of Australia from the first Trump administration, most notably perhaps the former defence secretary, James Mattis, who made the case forcefully about the importance of security and defence cooperation. On Capitol Hill, the waning health and power of the former Republican Senate majority leader and Australia advocate, Mitch McConnell, is seen as a significant setback.

There is another key difference between this time and last: AUKUS, an acronym that literally inverts the philosophy of America First. Yet the idea behind it, as a beachhead against Beijing, appeals to China trade hawks within the Trump administration. Last week, in what looked like an act of feudalism before Trump’s increasingly monarchical court, the Australian government also proffered its first downpayment of $800 million to finance future submarine production at American shipyards. Few things appeal to Trump more than seeing American coffers swelled by an alliance partner ponying up eye-catching wads of cash.

In recent decades, prime ministers have demonstrated impressive persuasive prowess in successfully cajoling US presidents. Paul Keating talked Bill Clinton into elevating APEC into a “heads of government” summit. John Howard persuaded a sceptical Clinton to provide US logistical support for the Australia-led East Timor operation. Rudd prevailed upon George W. Bush, and later Barack Obama, to make the G20 the primary diplomatic forum during the global financial crisis. Turnbull, first over the refugee deal and then with tariffs, succeeded with Trump.

Two key lessons emerge. First, that prime ministers and presidents do not have to be ideologically aligned to find common ground. Second, the Australian case has to be centred not on America altruism but naked US self-interest.

All this also makes a mockery of Bill Bryson’s sledge about the anonymity of Australian prime ministers. Obama saw Rudd as his wonkish kindred spirit. Bush labelled Howard a man of steel. Will Trump anoint Albanese the champion of Australian aluminium?

Nick Bryant, a former BBC Washington correspondent, is the author of The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict with Itself.

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